Walt Disney, Universal and Warner Bros have filed a lawsuit against Chinese AI startup MiniMax, accusing it of pirating some of Hollywood’s best-known characters.

The case, lodged in the US District Court for the Central District of California, centres on ‘Hailuo AI’.

That’s MiniMax’s video and image app, which it promoted, somewhat riskily, as a “Hollywood studio in your pocket”.

According to the complaint, Hailuo allows subscribers to generate content featuring Spider-Man, Superman, Darth Vader, Shrek, Buzz Lightyear and Bugs Bunny.

The studios allege MiniMax “completely disregards US copyright law and treats valuable copyrighted characters like its own.”

The studios say MiniMax has ignored their warnings, even though it has the technology to stop its AI from generating their copyrighted characters.

Founded in Shanghai in 2021, MiniMax has become one of China’s AI Dragons, alongside rivals like Baichuan and Zhipu.

It has built generative AI models that power Hailuo and Talkie, a chatbot competing with Character.AI.

Character.AI is a popular American app that lets users roleplay and chat with AI-generated personalities.

Disney is just one of the studios upset by AI companies infringing its copyright

Bloomberg reports that MiniMax is valued at around US$3 billion ($4.6 billion) and is eyeing a listing this year.

Disney and the other Hollywood studios argue the case is not just about licensing, but about defending the cultural and economic role of the US film industry.

Their filing notes Hollywood supports millions of jobs and contributes more than US$260 billion ($400 billion) annually to the American economy.

Of course, this is just the latest in a series of intellectual property fights AI firms have become embroiled in.

In June, Disney and Universal sued Midjourney. Warner Bros launched its own action earlier this month.

The MiniMax case marks a united front by Hollywood to stop AI platforms training on, or outputting, famous characters without consent.

MiniMax has yet to respond to the allegations.