Disney has sent a cease and desist letter to Google, accusing the tech giant of copyright infringement on a “massive scale.”
The letter argues that the company is leveraging its dominance in generative AI to “commercially exploit and distribute” infringing images and videos.
“Google is intentionally amplifying the scope of its infringement, by making its infringing AI Services available across so many channels to so many consumers, flooding the market with infringing works, and reaping enormous profits and other value from its unlawful, harmful, and damaging exploitation of Disney’s copyrighted works,” the letter from Jenner & Block attorney David Singer states.
The letter notes that the the infringing material is using characters from Disney IP such as “Frozen,” “the Lion King,” “Moana,” “the Little Mermaid,” “Deadpool,” “the Guardians of the Galaxy,” and “Star Wars.” It specifically calls out Google’s AI models such as Veo, Imagen and Nano Banana, as well as its virtual assistant Gemini and YouTube, the YouTube mobile app and YouTube Shorts .
Disney also claims that Google has “refused to implement any technological measures to mitigate or prevent copyright infringement,” despite such measures being readily available and used by its competitors and that it has been raising concerns with Google for months.
“If anything, Google’s infringement has only increased during that time,” Disney said.
In addition to demanding that it stop copying and distributing Disney IP in its services and implement measure to ensure “no further outputs” infringe on the company’s works, the letter also called on Google to identify which works have been used to train its AI models and to cease doing so.
A spokesperson for Google did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment.
The move comes as Disney has previously sent cease and desist letters to Meta and Character.AI. It also joined NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery in litigation against Midjourney and MiniMax,
At the same time, Disney has also embraced AI, taking a $1 billion stake in OpenAI and will license its characters to the latter’s Sora video platform in early 2026. The characters — though not the talent who portray or voice them — will also be available for use for ChatGPT’s image-generation platform, and will include everyone from Mickey Mouse to Iron Man to Elsa.
Disney will also host a series of curated Sora-generated videos on Disney+, and OpenAI will help power new experiences on the streaming service. Disney employees will also have access to ChatGPT.
