The letter comes just as Disney announced it had reached a partnership with OpenAI.
December 11, 2025 7:47am
The Walt Disney Co. film studio lot. AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
Disney has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Google accusing the tech giant of using Disney’s copyrighted works to train its AI models.
In the letter, sent Wednesday, Disney says there h…
The letter comes just as Disney announced it had reached a partnership with OpenAI.
December 11, 2025 7:47am
The Walt Disney Co. film studio lot. AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
Disney has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Google accusing the tech giant of using Disney’s copyrighted works to train its AI models.
In the letter, sent Wednesday, Disney says there has been copyright infringement on a “massive scale,” given its claims that Google has been using AI models and services to “commercially exploit and distribute copies” across many channels, including Google Workspace applications and the YouTube mobile application.
“Google has deeply embedded its infringing video and image AI Services into its broad family of products and services actively used by over a billion people. This multiplies the scope of Google’s infringement, and harm to Disney’s intellectual property, not to mention the ill-gotten benefits Google enjoys from its unauthorized exploitation of Disney’s copyrighted works,” the letter reads.
The letter comes just as Disney announced it had reached a partnership with OpenAI and agreed to invest $1 billion into the Google rival. Disney has sent similar letters to Meta and Character.AI, and is in litigation with NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery against Midjourney and Minimax.
Disney claims in the letter that it has been raising its concerns with Google for months, but that Google has not taken action. “If anything, Google’s infringement has only increased during that time,” the letter states.
“Google’s AI Services are designed to free ride off Disney’s intellectual property. Google has refused to implement any technological measures to mitigate or prevent copyright infringement, even though such measures are readily available and being used by Google’s competitors. Instead, Google continues to directly exploit Disney’s copyrights for commercial gain,” the letter reads.
More to come.
THR Newsletters
Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day