Walt Disney Co. and Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal filed a joint copyright-infringement lawsuit against Midjourney Inc. on 11 June in a California federal court. The studios say the San Francisco-based start-up’s AI image generator produces unlicensed replicas of characters from franchises such as “Star Wars,” Marvel, “The Simpsons” and “Despicable Me.” In their 110-page complaint, the companies label Midjourney a “bottomless pit of plagiarism” and a “copyright free-rider,” alleging its models were trained on their protected libraries and now allow users to create “innumerable” unauthorized images of icons including Darth Vader, Yoda, Elsa, Shrek, Homer Simpson and the Minions. The plaintiffs seek a jury trial, an injunction barring further infringement and statutory damages of up to $150,000 for every contested work. The case is the first brought by major Hollywood studios against a generative-AI provider, underscoring growing tension between content owners and emerging AI businesses. Legal specialists say the outcome could set a precedent for how U.S. copyright law applies to both the data used to train AI systems and the images they generate.