Disney just escalated its war against AI companies using its characters without permission. The entertainment giant sent a cease and desist letter to Character.AI last week over unauthorized use of copyrighted characters, marking another front in Hollywood's battle to protect intellectual property from AI scrapers. With Disney already suing Midjourney and Character.AI scrambling to remove the disputed bots, this represents a crucial test case for how AI companies can use branded content.
Disney isn't playing games when it comes to protecting Mickey Mouse and friends from AI copycats. The entertainment powerhouse fired off a cease and desist letter to Character.AI last week, demanding the AI startup stop letting users create chatbots based on Disney's copyrighted characters without authorization, according to CNBC reporting.
The move caught Character.AI off guard, but the company quickly capitulated. A spokesperson told CNBC they've already removed the disputed characters and acknowledged "it's always up to rightsholders to decide how people may interact with their IP." The admission reveals how precarious AI companies' positions have become when major studios start wielding legal muscle.
But Character.AI isn't backing down entirely. The company's trying to flip the script, positioning itself as a potential partner rather than a pirate. "We want to partner with the industry and rightsholders to empower them to bring their characters to our platform," the spokesperson said, pitching a vision where IP owners could "create controlled, engaging and revenue-generating experiences from deep fandom for their characters."
The cease and desist represents Disney's latest salvo in what's becoming an industry-wide crackdown on AI companies that help themselves to copyrighted content. Disney's already locked in an ongoing legal battle with Midjourney, the AI image generator that allegedly churned out unauthorized versions of characters from Cars, Toy Story, Shrek, and The Avengers. That lawsuit could set crucial precedent for how courts handle AI-generated content that mimics copyrighted material.
Character.AI's business model makes it particularly vulnerable to these attacks. The platform lets users create and chat with AI-powered characters, and many gravitate toward familiar faces from pop culture. One chatbot that landed the company in hot water was "Daenerys Targaryen" from Game of Thrones - part of a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III, who allegedly became addicted to the app before taking his own life.
