Disney’s Legal Action Against Google Over Copyright Issues

Disney has issued a cease-and-desist letter to Google, alleging that the tech company has engaged in “massive” copyright infringement through its generative AI tools.

The letter claims that Google is exploiting its position in generative AI to “commercially exploit and distribute” images and videos that infringe on Disney’s copyrights. The correspondence, sent by attorney David Singer from Jenner & Block, highlights that Disney characters from franchises like Frozen, The Lion King, Moana, The Little Mermaid, Deadpool, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Star Wars are involved in this infringement.

Furthermore, the letter points to Google’s AI models, including Veo, Imagen, and Nano Banana, along with its virtual assistants Gemini and YouTube, as being part of the infringing activity.

Disney criticized Google for not taking proactive steps to “mitigate or prevent copyright infringement,” despite multiple discussions regarding the issue over recent months. The letter states, “If anything, Google’s breaches have only increased during this time.”

In its request, Disney has asked Google to cease copying and distributing its intellectual property, implement measures to ensure “no further output” of its material, and disclose what Disney content was used to train its AI models, while stopping all further AI training.

This action against Google follows similar letters sent by Disney to Meta and Character.AI, while also taking a different approach with OpenAI, with which Disney recently inked a $1 billion deal.