Disney Accuses Google Of ‘Massive’ AI Copyright Theft

The Walt Disney Company has accused Google of infringing its copyrights on what it calls a “massive scale,” intensifying Hollywood’s broader (sometimes) clashes with major artificial intelligence developers.

A cease-and-desist letter was sent to Google’s parent company, Alphabet, as Disney draws more definitive lines regarding its assets and generative AI: it is currently suing Midjourney and other firms over alleged misuse of its works, even as it announced a $1 billion deal on Wednesday allowing more than 200 Disney characters to be used in OpenAI’s Sora and ChatGPT.

In the letter, Disney contends that Google copied a huge collection of its films, characters, and other protected materials to train AI models and is now distributing unauthorized images and videos through services including Gemini, Veo, Imagen, Nano Banana, YouTube, and Google Workspace.

The company says Google’s tools can generate characters from Frozen, The Lion King, Moana, and other IPs through simple prompts, and that some outputs appear branded with the Gemini logo, falsely implying Disney’s approval of the use. According to Variety and Deadline, Disney’s legal team also included images of the alleged copyright-breaking results.

“Google’s AI Services are designed to free ride off Disney’s intellectual property,” attorney David Singer writes in the letter – shared in bits and pieces across several trades – which alleges Google is “intentionally amplifying the scope of its infringement” by integrating AI features across platforms used by more than a billion people.

Disney says it has been raising concerns for months, but that “Google has done nothing in response… If anything, Google’s infringement has only increased during that time,” reports Axios.

The company is demanding that Google stop copying and distributing its works, adopt effective safeguards to prevent future infringement, and disclose which copyrighted materials were used to train its models.

The move adds Google to a growing list of AI companies facing Disney’s scrutiny, including Meta, Character.AI, Midjourney, and MiniMax. Google has not yet commented on the allegations.