According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney, Warner Bros. Exploration, and Universal Pictures have officially sued Chinese AI company MiniMax in California federal court, accusing its image and video generation service "Conch AI" of massive infringement, unauthorized use of classic film and television IP to train models and output works.
The lawsuit claims that MiniMax claims to be the "Hollywood in your pocket" and allows users to input well-known characters such as "Darth Vader" or "Minions" to generate images and even short videos, with some of the generated results even containing MiniMax watermarks. The three major studios have accused MiniMax of being unable to achieve such output capabilities without large-scale copyright infringement.
This lawsuit is seen as a high-profile counterattack by Hollywood against generative AI companies. In recent years, from writers, record companies to news organizations, multiple copyright holders have accused AI companies of crawling, training, and re creating without paying fees, eroding existing content demand. Earlier this month, Warner Bros., Disney, and Universal jointly sued Midjourney for allegedly using film and television works to train AI models.
Charles Rivkin, CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPA), stated in a statement that "regardless of where these AI companies are located, we will hold them accountable for infringing on the rights of American creators. If left unchecked, copyright infringement will threaten the entire American film industry. ”
The lawsuit warns that with technological advancements, "Conch AI" may generate unauthorized videos of the same length as a full movie or TV series in the future, posing a "survival threat" to Hollywood. The three major studios are requesting the court to order MiniMax to cease using its intellectual property and surrender any illegal gains.
