{"id":26896,"date":"2025-09-17T01:38:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T01:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/26896\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T01:38:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T01:38:07","slug":"disney-warner-bros-universal-pictures-sue-chinese-ai-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/26896\/","title":{"rendered":"Disney, Warner Bros., Universal Pictures Sue Chinese AI Company"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDisney<\/a>, Warner Bros. Discovery<\/a> and Universal Pictures<\/a> 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<\/a> systems.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in California federal court, accuses MiniMax of building its business by plundering the studios\u2019 intellectual property. Its service, Hailuo AI, allows users to generate content of iconic copyrighted characters.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe studios characterize MiniMax\u2019s alleged infringement as an existential threat. Given the rapid advancement of AI technology, it\u2019s \u201conly a matter of time until Hailuo AI can generate unauthorized, infringing videos\u201d that are \u201csubstantially longer, and even eventually the same duration as a movie or television program,\u201d the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor years, AI companies have been training their technology on data scraped across the internet without compensating creators. It\u2019s led to lawsuits from authors, record labels, news organizations, artists and studios, which contend that some AI tools erode demand for their content.<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier this month, Warner Bros. Discovery joined<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement, Motion Picture Association CEO Charles Rivkin said AI companies will be \u201cheld accountable for infringing on the rights of American creators wherever they are located.\u201d He added, \u201cWe remain concerned\u00a0that copyright infringement, left unchecked, threatens the entire\u00a0American motion picture industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMiniMax markets its Hailuo AI as a \u201cHollywood studio in your pocket\u201d and uses studios\u2019 characters in promotional materials, the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe only way MiniMax\u2019s technology would be able do so, the studios allege, is if the company trained its AI system on their intellectual property.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, including disgorgement of profits, and a court order barring MiniMax from continuing to exploit studios\u2019 works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Universal Pictures have sued a Chinese artificial intelligence image and video generator for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,2398,111,139,69,145,26772,3204],"class_list":{"0":"post-26896","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-disney","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-technology","16":"tag-universal-pictures","17":"tag-warner-bros-discovery"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}