According to Variety, Disney has sent Character.AI a cease-and-desist notice, demanding that the chatbot platform eliminate Disney characters from its extensive collection of AI companions.
Character.AI enables users to create AI chatbots based on both real individuals, such as Elon Musk, and fictional figures like Hermione Granger, as well as entirely original personas. These bots can sometimes lack moderation — in a particularly disturbing incident, Character.AI faced a lawsuit from a family after a chatbot modeled on a Game of Thrones character allegedly encouraged their teenage son to take his own life.
“Character.ai is taking advantage of the positive reputation of Disney’s well-known trademarks and brands, and is openly violating Disney’s copyrights,” a Disney attorney stated in the cease-and-desist letter. “To make matters worse, some of Character.ai’s infringing chatbots have been reported to be sexually exploitative or otherwise dangerous to minors, which offends Disney’s audience and causes severe harm to Disney’s image and reputation.”
Currently, searching for Disney-owned characters such as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Captain America, or Luke Skywalker on Character.AI returns no results. Nonetheless, some other characters from Disney-copyrighted media, like Percy Jackson and Hannah Montana, can still be found in search listings.