Disney, Universal and Warner Bros. Discovery are teaming up on the , this time against Chinese company MiniMax, owner of Hailuo AI. The three mega-studios, which collectively represent , filed suit in California against the AI-powered image and video generation platform alleging that it “pirates and plunders Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works on a massive scale.”
The lawsuit includes dozens of screenshots of infringing generated images that span the gamut of the various studios’ IP, from superheroes in the DC and Marvel universes to Star Wars, Minions and various other cartoons and animated films.
Included in the suit are allegations that MiniMax not only failed to take reasonable actions to avoid infringement, but that the company actively engaged in and encouraged these infringing creations.
The suit alleges a business model purposefully built around infringing on protected works whose defiance of US copyright law is “willful and brazen.” MiniMax markets the Hailuo AI app for iOS and Android as a “Hollywood studio in your pocket,” according to the suit, and advertisements for the platform explicitly invite users to create custom videos using protected works. Screenshots of these advertisements are included in the suit.
This is the latest in a string of high-profile lawsuits brought by media companies over AI-generated content. Earlier this month sued the popular AI image generator Midjourney over similar claims, and filed a joint suit against it in June.
Television and film aren’t the only industries to accuse AI companies of blatant copyright offenses, with the publishing world seeing its fair share of lawsuits. Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude, had just reached a in a class action case representing over 500,000 authors, though a judge the settlement. Apple is also alleging the company used pirated books to train its AI model.
You can read the full complaint below:
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