Major studios sue MiniMax over AI copyright infringement

Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and NBCUniversal filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday accusing Chinese artificial intelligence company MiniMax of running a willful and brazen copyright infringement scheme by using the studios' characters to power and promote its image and video generator, Hailuo AI. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleges the Shanghai based company has built a subscription business by copying and reproducing copyrighted characters in downloadable images and videos.

According to the studios' filing, MiniMax markets Hailuo AI as a "Hollywood studio in your pocket" and delivers high quality, branded outputs when users prompt the system with names or descriptions of copyrighted characters. The complaint provides examples it says show generated images and videos of characters including Darth Vader, Spider Man, Wonder Woman, the Joker, Minions, Guardians of the Galaxy and Superman. The studios say Hailuo often displays MiniMax branding on the infringing material, and that the only plausible way the system could produce such close renditions is by training on the plaintiffs' copyrighted works.