The Walt Disney Co. sent a cease‑and‑desist letter to Google on Wednesday, alleging the tech company infringed Disney’s works to train and develop generative AI models without compensation, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Axios. This comes days after Disney announced a $1 billion investment in Google’s competitor OpenAI.
The letter increases copyright pressure on Google, which has been less aggressive about striking partnerships with copyright owners than some peers, including OpenAI.
The letter was sent by David Singer, an attorney representing Disney. It alleges that Google’s “willful infringement is especially alarming because it is leveraging its dominance in generative AI and across multiple other markets to make its infringing AI Services as widely available as possible.”
The letter also alleges that Google has integrated its AI services into existing products and services, including Workspace applications and YouTube.
“Google’s AI Services are designed to free ride off Disney’s intellectual property,” the letter states. It alleges Google “has refused to implement any technological measures to mitigate or prevent copyright infringement, even though such measures are readily available and being used by Google’s competitors.” The letter adds that Google “continues to directly exploit Disney’s copyrights for commercial gain.”
Singer also claims Disney has raised concerns with Google for months, but that “Google has done nothing in response.” He adds, “If anything, Google’s infringement has only increased during that time.”
Google said in a statement: “We have a longstanding and mutually beneficial relationship with Disney, and will continue to engage with them.”
The company added: “More generally, we use public data from the open web to build our AI and have built additional innovative copyright controls like Google‑extended and Content ID for YouTube, which give sites and copyright holders control over their content.”
Disney has taken what the report describes as a leadership position in Hollywood in pressuring AI firms over the fair use of content, and the company says those efforts have produced results.
Disney struck a comprehensive deal with OpenAI on Thursday. OpenAI initially said IP owners would have to opt out of having their copyrighted characters included in its Sora service but later shifted to an opt‑in policy after Hollywood backlash.
In September, Disney sent a cease‑and‑desist letter to Character.AI, raising similar allegations. The letter led Character.AI to change how it used Disney’s intellectual property.
In June, Disney and NBCUniversal filed a complaint against Midjourney, which the report describes as the first lawsuit by a major studio against a generative AI company. Warner Bros. Discovery sued Midjourney in early September.
Earlier this month, Disney joined NBCU and WBD in a lawsuit against the Chinese AI firm MiniMax, alleging large‑scale piracy of copyrighted works from their studios.
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