Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Universal Pictures have sued a Chinese artificial intelligence image and video generator for copyright infringement, opening another front in a high-stakes battle involving the use of movies and TV shows owned by major studios to teach AI systems.
The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in California federal court, accuses MiniMax of building its business by plundering the studios’ intellectual property. Its service, Hailuo AI, allows users to generate content of iconic copyrighted characters.
The studios characterize MiniMax’s alleged infringement as an existential threat. Given the rapid advancement of AI technology, it’s “only a matter of time until Hailuo AI can generate unauthorized, infringing videos” that are “substantially longer, and even eventually the same duration as a movie or television program,” the lawsuit says.
For years, AI companies have been training their technology on data scraped across the internet without compensating creators. It’s led to lawsuits from authors, record labels, news organizations, artists and studios, which contend that some AI tools erode demand for their content.
Earlier this month, Warner Bros. Discovery joined Disney and Universal in suing Midjourney for allegedly training its AI system on its movies and TV shows. By their thinking, the AI company is a free-rider plagiarizing their content.
In a statement, Motion Picture Association CEO Charles Rivkin said AI companies will be “held accountable for infringing on the rights of American creators wherever they are located.” He added, “We remain concerned that copyright infringement, left unchecked, threatens the entire American motion picture industry.”
MiniMax markets its Hailuo AI as a “Hollywood studio in your pocket” and uses studios’ characters in promotional materials, the lawsuit says.
When prompted with Darth Vader, the service returns an image of the character with a Minimax watermark, according to the complaint. It can also generate videos of characters seen across Disney, Warner Bros. and Universal movies and TV shows, including Minions, Guardians of the Galaxy and Superman, the lawsuit claims.
The only way MiniMax’s technology would be able do so, the studios allege, is if the company trained its AI system on their intellectual property.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, including disgorgement of profits, and a court order barring MiniMax from continuing to exploit studios’ works.