Universal Pictures adds legal warning to films in bid to block AI training

Universal Pictures has begun adding end-credit notices barring the use of its films to train artificial intelligence systems, a move aimed at strengthening its legal position against data mining. The policy, which debuted in June with How to Train Your Dragon and has since appeared on Jurassic World Rebirth and Bad Guys 2, references both U.S. copyright law and, in some regions, a 2019 European directive allowing creators to opt out of AI use in research.

The shift comes as Hollywood faces a potential wave of AI-generated entertainment built from studio-owned intellectual property. Some AI image generators have already produced near-identical recreations of scenes from major films, prompting Disney and Universal to sue Midjourney for copyright infringement.

At stake is whether AI companies can claim “fair use” protection, or whether unauthorized copying of works — a key step in model training — could trigger damages of up to $150,000 per title. With studios under pressure from shrinking audience share, the legal outcome could shape how aggressively Hollywood fights to keep its libraries out of AI datasets.