EXCLUSIVE: Google appears to have backed down in its AI dispute with Disney.
Disney issued Google with a cease and desist letter in December, complaining that the tech giant’s AI products were behaving like a “virtual vending machine” for the Mouse House’s IP.
Nearly two months on, and Deadline can reveal that Google tools, including Gemini and Nano Banana, are now denying prompts that contain Disney-owned characters.
In January, Deadline experimented with several Google AI prompts involving the likes of Yoda, Iron Man, Frozen’s Elsa, and Winnie-the-Pooh, all of which generated high-quality images.
These same prompts were today blocked by Google’s AI models. The denial message read: “I can’t generate the image you requested right now due to concerns from third-party content providers. Please edit your prompt and try again.”
Two other U.S.-based sources told Deadline they were also thwarted in efforts to generate AI images from Disney-related text prompts.
Google and Disney were approached for comment.
The same Google Gemini prompt, different results
Although changes appear to have been made, Google’s AI products continued to generate Disney-related IP when uploading photos of characters alongside text prompts.
For example, Deadline uploaded a photo of Buzz Lightyear alongside Google’s viral figurine prompt, which enabled Gemini to create a virtual figurine featuring Tim Allen’s character.
In December, Disney’s outside attorney David Singer wrote a 32-page cease and desist letter to Google detailing the ways in which tools like Veo, Nano Banana, and Gemini were “infringing Disney’s copyrights on a massive scale.”
The letter contained several examples, complete with embedded pictures, explaining how simple text prompts resulted in glossy renderings of Disney characters, including Darth Vader and Iron Man.
Disney’s letter set out four demands of Google, including immediately halting copyright infringement and ordering the company to stop training models on Mouse House IP. The missive added that Disney had been “raising concerns” for months with no progress.
At the time the letter was made public, a Google spokesperson said: “We have a longstanding and mutually beneficial relationship with Disney, and will continue to engage with them.
“More generally, we use public data from the open web to build our AI and have built additional innovative copyright controls like Google-extended and Content ID for YouTube, which give sites and copyright holders control over their content.”
Disney sent Google the warning in the same week it signed a $1B deal with OpenAI, licensing characters to Sora, the generative video app.
