Midjourney Turns Tables on Hollywood: AI Image Firm Demands Studios Expose Their Own Secret AI Experiments

Midjourney turns tables on Hollywood by pressing major studios to disclose their own AI practices as a copyright dispute expands. The AI company has demanded that Disney, Universal and Warner Bros. open records on how they use artificial intelligence behind the scenes, according to discovery in a lawsuit filed last year. Studios accuse Midjourney of enabling users to generate images of protected characters such as Darth Vader, Elsa, Superman and others, while Midjourney argues training on public images is fair use. A U.S. magistrate judge limited disclosure to consumer-facing AI projects, and Midjourney says that restriction is unfair. It filed a motion to overturn the order, seeking business plans, research reports, training datasets, model weights and board materials. Midjourney argues that if studios trained internal models on unlicensed content, it could weaken claims of market harm and support its defenses. Studios, represented by attorney David Singer, called the request a “fishing expedition” and say they seek an end to unauthorized copying and derivatives.