Midjourney challenges discovery limits in studio copyright lawsuit

The AI startup Midjourney is attempting to overturn a court ruling that limited the scope of the discovery process—the legal phase where parties exchange information—in its ongoing legal battle with three Hollywood studios. The startup is seeking to compel Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. to reveal how they use artificial intelligence internally. Disney and Universal sued Midjourney for alleged copyright infringement last year, pointing to the startup’s image-generation models producing images of copyrighted characters. A few months later, Warner Bros. sued Midjourney as well.

Midjourney maintains that training its AI models on images of copyrighted characters is permitted under fair use. The current dispute centers on what documents the studios must produce. A judge previously ruled that the studios would have to provide information about their generative AI usage, but only when it resulted in consumer-facing videos and images. In its latest filing, Midjourney seeks to overturn this limitation. The startup argues that the restriction unfairly allows the studios to select only the documents they believe support their claims of market harm while depriving Midjourney of information that would support its defenses.

According to Midjourney, the withheld documents would reveal whether the studios are doing behind closed doors exactly what they are suing the startup for doing. The startup argues that if the studios are developing image-generating AI models for internal use in storyboarding or ideating content for film or TV, that evidence would demonstrate that downloading and training AI on unlicensed copyrighted content is an industry custom, even among the studios themselves. The startup is also seeking to force the studios to reveal all the prompts they used in Midjourney, along with the resulting outputs, rather than only the prompts that produced the allegedly infringing images.

The studios have strongly resisted these demands. David Singer, the lead attorney for the studios, characterized Midjourney’s request for documentation as a “fishing expedition.” Singer stated that the studios do not seek to stop AI technology or shut down Midjourney’s business. Instead, he maintained that the studios simply want Midjourney to stop copying their movies and TV shows, and to stop distributing, publicly displaying, performing, and creating derivative works that include unauthorized copies of their famous characters.

Why it matters

This case tests whether AI companies can use the discovery process to expose the internal practices of their accusers, potentially shifting the legal landscape for ‘fair use’ defenses in generative AI.