Midjourney, the San Francisco-based AI image generator, has asked a federal judge to order Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. to turn over detailed records of their internal AI operations. The motion, filed in early July 2026, asks U.S. District Judge John Kronstadt to overturn a June ruling by magistrate judge Joel Richlin that limited the studios’ disclosure obligations to consumer-facing AI products only.
The underlying lawsuit
The three studios sued Midjourney in 2025 — Disney and Universal in June, Warner Bros. in September — claiming the platform allows users to generate images of copyrighted characters, including Bart Simpson, Darth Vader, Superman, and Batman, without the rights holders’ authorization. Midjourney has denied wrongdoing and is asserting a fair-use defense.
What Midjourney is demanding
Midjourney’s lawyers argue the studios are “doing exactly what they are suing Midjourney for doing.” The motion contends that if Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. are using generative AI trained on unlicensed third-party content for internal purposes — such as storyboarding or content development — that would demonstrate an industry-wide custom of training AI on copyrighted material without authorization, which could undermine their own legal position.
The company is seeking the studios’ AI business plans, research reports, training datasets, model weights, board-level presentations on AI strategy, and the full record of any internal prompts submitted to Midjourney’s platform.
Studios push back
The studios’ lead attorney, David Singer, dismissed the request as a “fishing expedition.” He argued the studios simply want Midjourney to stop reproducing their protected characters without permission, and that the company’s internal AI practices are irrelevant to that question.
Why it matters
The discovery dispute is one of the most closely watched legal battles over generative AI and copyright. If Judge Kronstadt grants Midjourney’s motion, it would signal that AI companies can use plaintiffs’ own AI practices as part of their defense in infringement cases — a principle with significant implications for how copyright law applies across the AI industry.