Midjourney Seeks Full Disclosure of Hollywood Studios' AI Usage
AI image-generation platform Midjourney has intensified its legal battle against three major Hollywood studios by filing a motion to compel broader discovery of their internal artificial intelligence practices. The copyright infringement lawsuit, originally initiated by Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. over the generation of protected characters, has pivoted around a narrow dispute concerning documentation during the pretrial discovery phase. Midjourney maintains that training its models on copyrighted imagery qualifies as fair use. However, the startup argues that a prior judicial decision limiting mandatory disclosure to consumer-facing videos and images fundamentally undermines its defense. In its latest filing, Midjourney contends that the restricted scope permits the studios to selectively withhold records that contradict their market harm allegations. The company asserts that this limitation also masks whether the studios themselves are utilizing unlicensed copyrighted data to train proprietary generative AI models for internal workflows like storyboarding and script development. To substantiate its fair use position, Midjourney has requested comprehensive disclosure of all user prompts and corresponding outputs on its platform, rejecting the studios' preference for sampling only allegedly infringing examples. The startup argues that proving such practices are an industry-wide standard would significantly bolster its legal standing. Studios lead attorney David Singer has dismissed the expanded discovery request as a fishing expedition. He clarified that the litigation does not seek to ban artificial intelligence or terminate Midjourney operations. Rather, the studios aim to prevent the unauthorized reproduction, public distribution, and creation of derivative works featuring their intellectual property without licensing agreements. The resolution of this discovery conflict will establish critical precedent for how courts interpret fair use, corporate disclosure obligations, and generative AI training methodologies in the entertainment sector.
