Midjourney unveiled its first AI video generation tool on June 18, 2025, enabling subscribers to create animated clips from images, despite a copyright lawsuit from Disney and Universal.
Midjourney has announced a new tool that animates still images, whether user-uploaded or created by the platform, into five-second videos, which can be extended up to 21 seconds in four-second increments. Users can initiate animation with an “animate” button, offering standard and customizable subject and camera movement options. The cost is approximately $1 per second of video, making it significantly pricier than static images (eight times the cost). This feature is available exclusively to subscribers, with a minimum monthly subscription fee of $10.
Midjourney, the AI Company Being Sued by Disney and NBCU, Launches First Video-Generation Tool (WATCH) https://t.co/2Ko87Co3jY
— Variety (@Variety) June 19, 2025Disney and Universal filed a 110-page lawsuit on June 11, 2025, in Los Angeles federal court, alleging Midjourney’s AI was trained on copyrighted characters like Darth Vader and Shrek without permission, calling it a “bottomless pit of plagiarism,” per Reuters. The suit, which seeks damages and an injunction, flags the video tool’s potential to generate infringing content. Midjourney’s CEO, David Holz, admitted to scraping internet data without artist consent in a 2022 Forbes interview, complicating their defence.
Midjourney competes with OpenAI’s Sora, Google’s Veo, and Runway’s Gen-4, which offer text-to-video generation. Holz called the tool a “stepping stone” toward real-time world simulation models, per The Verge. Future updates may expand capabilities, but legal risks loom, with experts like IP lawyer Chad Hummel noting the lawsuit could reshape AI copyright law.
