Disney accuses Google of ‘massive’ copyright infringement, calls Gemini ‘virtual vending machine’

Disney may have signed a significant $1 billion investment and licensing deal with OpenAI, according to a report from Variety, but the entertainment giant is also accusing Google of copyright infringement on what it calls “massive scale.” Disney alleges that Google used its AI models to “commercially exploit and distribute” copyrighted images and videos without permission.

The company has reportedly sent a cease and desist letter to Google, demanding that the tech giant stop its alleged misuse of its intellectual property.

A letter from Disney’s lawyers to Google’s general counsel states:

“Google is violating Disney’s copyrights on a massive scale by copying without permission a large compilation of Disney’s copyrighted works to train and develop generative artificial intelligence (‘AI’) models and services, and by using its AI models and services to commercially exploit and distribute copies of its protected works to consumers, infringing Disney’s copyrights.”

The letter adds: “Google operates as a virtual vending machine with the capacity to reproduce, create, and distribute copies of Disney’s valuable library of copyrighted characters and other works on a large scale. And compounding Google’s apparent infringement, many of the infringing images created by Google’s AI Services are branded with Google’s Gemini logo, falsely implying that Google’s use of Disney’s intellectual property is authorized and approved by Disney.”

Disney reportedly claimed that it had been raising concerns about protecting its intellectual property at Google for months, but said the company had not taken sufficient steps to resolve those issues.

The letter claims that Google’s artificial intelligence systems created unauthorized images of well-known characters from major franchises such as Frozen, The Lion King, Moana, The Little Mermaid, Deadpool, Guardians of the Galaxy, Toy Story, Brave, Ratatouille, Monsters Inc., Lilo & Stitch, Inside Out, as well as Star Wars, The Simpsons, Avengers and Spider-Man.

This isn’t Disney’s first response to AI companies. It had previously sent a cease and desist letter to Character.AI and also sued Midjourney for copyright infringement.

Disney characters are coming to Sora

The accusations come just hours after Disney announced a major deal with OpenAI that will bring more than 200 characters from Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars to Sora and ChatGPT. Under the three-year agreement, OpenAI users will be able to create images and videos with Disney’s IP starting in early 2026, but voice and actor likeness rights will be excluded.

Disney+ will also host a special collection of videos created by Sora, and the companies will collaborate on AI-powered features for the platform.