Universal Adds ‘No AI Training’ Warning to Films, Plans Tougher Lawsuits

Universal Pictures is making it clear to big tech companies: don’t use our movies to train your AI systems. And if you do, expect a lawsuit.

Starting in June, the studio began adding a new warning to the end credits of its films. It first appeared in How to Train Your Dragon and has since shown up in Jurassic World Rebirth and Bad Guys 2. The warning says their films “may not be used to train AI” and reminds viewers that “unauthorized duplication, distribution or exhibition may result in civil liability and criminal prosecution.”

A person familiar with the move told The Hollywood Reporter that Universal believes adding this language worldwide gives them another layer of protection against companies trying to mine their films for data to feed AI tools.

In some countries, the warning refers to a 2019 European Union copyright law that allows creators to refuse the use of their work in scientific research by explicitly reserving their rights, a law that many tech companies opposed.

Universal’s concern isn’t unfounded. In recent years, AI image generators have started producing near-identical images from famous movies. For example, typing “Thanos Infinity War” into Midjourney can give you a picture that looks exactly like a scene from the Marvel movie. Similar prompts can reproduce Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick or animated characters from Shrek, Ratatouille, and The Lego Movie.

This has raised alarms for studios like Universal and Disney, who now see a real threat to their intellectual property. They have even taken legal action against Midjourney and other AI companies to stop the practice.

The issue is whether AI companies can claim “fair use,” a legal principle that lets creators build on existing works without a license. In two recent cases, authors lost similar fights against AI companies, but courts hinted that if works were obtained illegally without payment, there could be liability.

That opens the door for massive payouts if studios can prove their movies were pirated and copied for AI training.

Universal’s warning specifically calls out “unauthorized duplication” because AI training often involves copying and storing material. With potential damages of up to $150,000 per work for willful infringement, the stakes are high.

Meanwhile, the AI industry is rapidly evolving. Some companies use AI for small tasks like visual effects or dubbing, while others want to make entire AI-generated movies. Fable Studios, for example, recently announced a partnership with Amazon for Showrunner, a platform that lets people create new episodes of a show just by typing a few words.

Fable’s founder, Edward Saatchi, says the future of entertainment will be very different. “Hollywood streaming services are about to become two-way entertainment,” he said. “Audiences watching a season of a show, loving it, will now be able to make new episodes with a few words and become characters with a photo.”

He added, “We can do so much more with AI.”

Universal clearly isn’t as excited about that future, at least not if it means their movies are used without permission.

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