Midjourney pushes to expose studios' own AI practices in copyright fight

Midjourney is attempting to turn the tables on the Hollywood studios suing it for copyright infringement, asking a federal judge to compel Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. Discovery to disclose their internal use of artificial intelligence, according to a Variety report published this week.

The discovery dispute is the latest chapter in a copyright battle that began in June 2025, when Disney and Comcast's Universal filed suit, accusing Midjourney of enabling large-scale infringement of copyrighted characters. That original complaint described Midjourney as a "bottomless pit of plagiarism" that generated unauthorized recreations of characters, including Darth Vader and Elsa, as previously reported by this outlet.

Warner Bros. Discovery joined the fight three months later, in September 2025, accusing Midjourney of "brazen theft" involving characters such as Superman, Batman, and Bugs Bunny, and seeking $150,000 per infringed work.

More than a year into the litigation, Midjourney has countered with a "fair use" defense, arguing the studios engage in comparable AI practices internally. Per Variety, the company's attorney, Bobby Ghajar, wrote that if the studios are "doing the very thing they seek to punish," that evidence is central to Midjourney's fair-use and "unclean hands" arguments. The company is seeking access to the studios' AI business plans, training datasets, model weights, and board presentations on AI.

A magistrate judge ruled against Midjourney's broader discovery request in mid-June 2026, limiting the studios' disclosure obligations to consumer-facing AI tools rather than internal systems. Midjourney has since asked Judge John Kronstadt to overturn that ruling.

The studios' attorney, David Singer, has dismissed the effort as a "fishing expedition" meant to deflect from Midjourney's own conduct, according to Variety's reporting.