AI-Translated from Korean · K-EnterTech Hub🇰🇷 Originally published in Korean: 디즈니-오픈AI 결별:할리우드는 왜 이제야 AI를 고소하기 시작했나
Studios had long refrained from suing AI companies. They feared closing the door on potential partnerships with AI firms. Even though the WGA urged lawsuits through a letter describing how Hollywood screenplays were being used for AI training, studios had held back. But in the second half of 2025, disputes have continued, beginning with lawsuits filed by Disney and Warner Bros. against the image-generation service Midjourney.
The lawsuits between content companies and AI companies differ in nature from the copyright disputes unfolding in the music industry. The target is not “what was used for training,” but rather how recognizable characters like Mickey Mouse and Batman are being reproduced in AI outputs.
After 2025, Lawsuits Between Studios and AI Companies Begin in Earnest
2025 was a very important year for studios. Studios, which had felt vague fear and impatience about AI’s development, slowly began to sort out their stance on AI. That was because AI’s level of work had not risen to the point of producing premium content.
In particular, major studios are said to have gained some understanding of AI’s uses and risks within their own production environments. After that, Hollywood studios shifted to a “dual hard-and-soft strategy”: putting the brakes on AI companies forcefully when necessary, while opening partnerships in other areas.
The lawsuits are part of the same context. In particular, the lawsuits brought by Disney and Warner Bros. against Midjourney are highly symbolic from the standpoint of Hollywood’s strategy. That is because, unlike music copyright lawsuits that center on specific scores or sound recordings, the key issue is how “recognizable characters” are being reproduced in AI outputs.
The focus of the problem is not the mere fact that AI services trained on vast amounts of content. Rather, it is whether, even when a user enters a relatively general prompt, characters protected by the original copyright holder—such as Darth Vader or Spider-Man—are output repeatedly and in a form recognizable to ordinary users.
This distinction is likely to serve as a catalyst for strengthening future discussions in AI copyright doctrine in the direction of “allowing the use of training data to some extent, while imposing liability depending on how much protected expression and characters are reproduced in outputs.”
Moreover, even if these lawsuits do not reach final court rulings and instead end in settlements, their significance is still considerable in that studios have clearly imprinted on the entire industry their intention to no longer stand by while their IP is reproduced without authorization by AI, but to respond actively through legal action.
Disney’s recent decision to unwind its $1 billion investment and licensing agreement with OpenAI alongside the shutdown of the Sora service can be read in the same context. Formally, OpenAI’s withdrawal of its video-generation service is the surface-level reason, but internally, concerns among executives and creators had been accumulating over how AI video tools might use the company’s character IP and what impact they could have on creators and the labor market.
This series of moves is functioning as a message that “we will confront head-on any AI use that touches IP and creators’ rights,” while at the same time being taken as a signal pressuring AI companies to redesign the ways character reproduction works, along with consultation and compensation structures with rights holders.
▶ Major Studio/Union vs. AI Lawsuits/Actions Status
Party to lawsuit/action — Timing — Issue — Status
Disney·Universal vs. Midjourney — 2025.06 — The first AI copyright lawsuit brought by major studios, alleging that Midjourney massively trained on and generated studio IP such as Darth Vader and the Minions, amounting to “unauthorized reproduction of animated characters.” The key issue is not the entirety of the training data, but whether recognizable characters are repeatedly regenerated in AI outputs. — Ongoing
Warner Bros. (Warner Bros. Discovery) vs. Midjourney 1st — 2025.09 — A character IP infringement lawsuit alleging that DC characters such as Superman and Batman were generated without authorization as AI images. Unlike music copyright lawsuits, the core issue is the reproduction of recognizable characters in outputs. — Ongoing
Warner Bros. vs. Midjourney 2nd — 2025.11 — A case that expanded the scope of litigation through the submission of a separate complaint covering additional characters and works. It played a role in broadening the studio litigation front. — Ongoing
WGA (Writers Guild of America) letter → studios — 2024~2025, before lawsuits — An official letter that organi
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고삼석 상임의장 · Chairman Samseog Ko
고삼석(Ko Samseog)은 K-EnterTech Forum 상임의장입니다. 동국대학교 첨단융합대학 석좌교수이자 국가인공지능전략위원회 분과위원으로, 30년 이상의 방송통신 정책 및 산업 경험을 바탕으로 K-콘텐츠와 글로벌 엔터테인먼트 기술의 융합을 선도하고 있습니다. 前 방송통신위원회 상임위원을 역임했으며, ZDNet Korea에 정기 칼럼을 연재 중입니다.
Samseog Ko is the founding Chairman (상임의장) of K-EnterTech Forum. He is a Distinguished Professor at Dongguk University and a member of Korea's National AI Strategy Committee. Former Commissioner of the Korea Communications Commission (KCC).
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