A coalition of Hollywood studios, including Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros., have sued a Chinese company alleging that its AI image and video-generating service, Hailuo AI, is pirating their copyrighted animations.
The infringement lawsuit was filed against MiniMax, its affiliate Shanghai Xiyu Jizhi Technology Co. Ltd., and Singaporean company Nanonoble Pte. Ltd on Sept. 16 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
“MiniMax’s bootlegging business model and defiance of U.S. copyright law are not only an attack on Plaintiffs and the hard-working creative community that brings the magic of movies to life, but are also a broader threat to the American motion picture industry, which has created millions of jobs and contributed more than $260 billion to the nation’s economy,” the lawsuit states.
The attorney who signed the complaint, David Singer, declined to comment, while Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros did not respond to requests for comment.
MiniMax is accused of providing subscribers with the technology to type a text prompt, such as "Darth Vader in a particular setting" or "Wonder Woman running through a battlefield," which then generates downloadable images and videos featuring copyrighted characters.
“To further commercialize its rampant copyright infringement, without authorization, MiniMax copies and uses Plaintiffs’ copyrighted characters to advertise and promote its Hailuo AI video service to U.S. consumers (falsely implying Plaintiffs’ endorsement),” Singer wrote.
The complaint includes screenshots of social media posts on Instagram and WeChat, which allegedly show AI-generated images of popular characters like the Joker, Spider-Man, and Supergirl being used to attract new subscribers.
MiniMax did not respond to requests for comment.
The potential for delays due to MiniMax being a Chinese company concerns legal experts like Need An Attorney founder Anthony May, who predicts that serving legal papers through China’s Central Authority under the Hague Service Convention will require translations.
"Courts sometimes allow alternative service, but defendants often contest it," May told NTD. "Preserving evidence across borders like logs, datasets, and weights can be difficult, and cross-border service and discovery can add many months to this case. The plaintiffs will also face obstacles getting source code, model weights, and training data from China because of Chinese data and export rules."
May adds that if the allegations are true, MiniMax could be held secondarily liable as well as directly liable.
"Even if the studios win, collecting a U.S. judgment in China is hard, so practical leverage usually comes from U.S.-based intermediaries like app stores, content-delivery networks, and payment processors," May added.