If you were wondering what the legal definition of Shrek is, the Disney / Universal lawsuit against AI company Midjourney confirms exactly what it is.
According to court documents posted to BlueSky: “Shrek’s namesake character is a large, bald, dull-green ogre with a broad, round face, brown eyes, and highly distinctive trumpet-shaped ears. Shrek typically wears crude clothing consisting of a canvas-like shirt, a leather vest, and brown leggings.”
That little descriptor — as hilarious and accurate as it actually is — is one of the excellent tidbits to come out of the landmark lawsuit. Yesterday, Disney joined forces with Universal to sue Midjourney for copyright infringement, stating that the AI-powered image generator is a “bottomless pit of plagiarism.”
Shrek is one of the properties that is being cited as part of Midjourney’s infringement offenses, as well as Marvel characters, Star Wars characters, Despicable Me’s iconic Minions, and others. According to a BlueSky user who combed through the docs, there are over 30 comparisons between studio artwork and Midjourney outputs.
Further, according to the docs, this suit has been percolating since November 2024, when Midjourney was served a demand letter — essentially an attempt to settle an issue out of court — from Disney, but they allegedly did not respond and then proceeded to develop more models that infringed on existing copyrights. Universal recently served the company another demand letter at the end of May, which means the studios finally decided to hit the gas pedal on taking down Midjourney.
Generative AI is one of the hottest topics within the video game and entertainment industries, which have both suffered massive layoffs in recent years. Generative AI thus far has drawn criticism from players and creators due to a mix of ethical issues, rights issues, and AI’s struggles to produce content audiences actually enjoy.
In March, social media platforms were flooded with AI-generated Studio Ghibli-inspired images as part of a trend sparked by the launch of OpenAI’s new GPT‑4o image generator. It caused a vociferous debate that resurfaced anti-AI comments from creator Hayao Miyazaki.
Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.
