U.S. media giants Disney (NYSE:DIS), Warner Bros. Discovery (NASDAQ:WBD), and Universal (NASDAQ:CMCSA) have jointly filed a lawsuit against Chinese artificial intelligence company MiniMax for infringing their intellectual property.
The lawsuit, which was filed on Tuesday in California, alleges that MiniMax’s AI image and video generating service, Hailuo AI, pirates and plunders the studios’ copyrighted works on a massive scale.
“Not only has it failed to act on Plaintiffs’ requests to adopt the reasonable measures taken by several AI services to avoid infringement, MiniMax has actively engaged in and encouraged infringement,” according to the lawsuit.
Earlier this year, Disney and Universal sued U.S.-based Midjourney, alleging that the AI startup infringed their IP by generating high-quality images of their popular characters. The suit was noted as Hollywood’s first copyright infringement battle against a generative AI company.
The latest suit alleges that when a MiniMax subscriber submits a text prompt, for example, Darth Vader in a particular setting or doing a particular action, the AI service generates and displays high-quality, downloadable images and videos featuring Disney’s copyrighted Darth Vader along with MiniMax and Hailuo watermarks.
MiniMax infringing Disney IP (lawsuit filing) 
The suit is Disney v. MiniMax, case no. 25-cv-08768, filed in the United States District Court, Central District of California.