The lawsuit juxtaposes images of copyrighted characters, such as Disney's Homer Simpson, shown above on the right, beside images output by Midjourney, left. Disney Enterprises, Inc., Marvel Characters, Inc., MVL Film Finance LLC, Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, and Universal City Studios Productions LLLP and DreamWorks Animation v. Midjourney, Inc. hide caption

In a first-of-its-kind lawsuit, entertainment companies Disney and Universal are suing AI firm Midjourney for copyright infringement.

The 110-page lawsuit, filed Wednesday in a U.S. district court in Los Angeles, includes detailed appendices illustrating the plaintiffs' claims with visual examples and alleges that Midjourney stole "countless" copyrighted works to train its AI engine in the creation of AI-generated images.

Many companies have gone after AI firms for copyright infringement, such as The New York Times (which sued OpenAI and Microsoft), Sony Music Entertainment (which filed a suit against AI song generator startups Suno and Udio) and Getty Images (against Stability AI). But this is the first time major Hollywood players have joined the fight against the AI landscape.