Midjourney seeks sweeping disclosure of studios' own AI practices in copyright fight

Midjourney is escalating its legal defense against three major Hollywood studios by demanding they expose the full scope of their own artificial-intelligence initiatives—a bid to demonstrate that content creators rely on the same techniques the studios say the startup has illegally used.

In a recent court filing, the image-generation platform argues that a judge's earlier ruling limiting what Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. must disclose during discovery is unfair. The judge had restricted the studios to revealing only AI systems that produced publicly available content. Midjourney contends this restriction lets the studios "cherry-pick" favorable evidence while withholding materials that could bolster its defense.

The underlying lawsuits#

Disney and Universal initiated legal action in mid-2025, accusing Midjourney of infringement because its models can generate images resembling their protected characters—from Bart Simpson to Darth Vader. Warner Bros. followed with its own suit months later, claiming unauthorized AI generation of Superman, Batman, and other franchise properties.

Midjourney maintains that training its models on copyrighted material falls within fair use doctrine.

Midjourney's discovery argument#

The startup argues that internal generative-AI projects at the studios—such as systems used for storyboarding or early creative ideation—would prove that relying on unlicensed copyrighted content is "an industry custom, even among the studios themselves." By revealing all prompts and outputs from Midjourney usage on their platforms, not just the infringing ones, Midjourney says it can show a pattern of industry practice.

In essence, Midjourney contends that the studios may be "doing exactly what they are suing Midjourney for doing" behind closed doors, and that withholding such documents prevents the startup from mounting a full defense.

Studios' position#

Warner Bros.' lead counsel has characterized Midjourney's request as a "fishing expedition." The studios have clarified that they are not seeking to eliminate AI technology or shutter Midjourney's operations, but rather to prevent the startup from reproducing their intellectual property without consent or compensating them for its use.