On September 16, 2025, Disney, Warner Bros., and NBCUniversal filed a lawsuit against Chinese AI company MiniMax in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleging “blatant and willful” copyright infringement. Defendants include MiniMax and its parent company, Shanghai Xiyu Technology Co., Ltd. The plaintiffs encompass multiple copyright entities including Marvel and Lucasfilm under Disney, DreamWorks under Universal, and DC Comics and Cartoon Network under Warner Bros. Discovery.

MiniMax (Shanghai Xiyu Technology), established in December 2021, is a Shanghai-based Chinese large-model startup specializing in developing general artificial intelligence technologies that fuse text, speech, and visual modalities. It has launched the ABAB series of large models and applications like Glow and Conch AI.

The complaint alleges that MiniMax systematically appropriated plaintiffs' works through its “Conch AI” image and video generation service. The plaintiffs provided multiple examples of alleged infringements by MiniMax, accompanied by images.

For instance, “if a MiniMax subscriber submits a simple text prompt requesting a character like Darth Vader in a specific scenario or performing a specific action, MiniMax generates and displays downloadable images and videos featuring Disney's copyrighted character Darth Vader.” Images of Darth Vader generated by the MiniMax system are shown below:

The plaintiffs further allege that MiniMax continued infringing activities after receiving cease-and-desist demands, noting the company possesses technical capabilities to filter violent and pornographic content but failed to implement copyright protection mechanisms. They seek unspecified damages or statutory damages capped at $150,000 per work, along with an injunction to halt ongoing infringement.

MiniMax did not immediately respond to the lawsuit.