According to WDW News Today, AI products developed by Google, including Gemini and Nano Banana, have begun declining to generate content featuring Disney characters. This shift comes after Disney accused these products of intellectual property infringement. Local media outlet Deadline reported on February 9 that these tools have now blocked requests to generate content involving Disney characters. This move follows approximately two months after Disney issued a cease-and-desist letter to Google in December of the previous year.

Previously, media outlets were able to successfully generate numerous high-quality images of Disney characters using prompts within Google's AI tools. However, when attempting to use the same prompts now, the system will indicate that it cannot generate the requested content due to concerns raised by third-party content providers. It suggests modifying the prompts instead. Nevertheless, if users upload their own photos of Disney characters along with text prompts, Google's AI products are still capable of generating related intellectual property (IP) content.

In December of the previous year, Disney's external legal counsel, David Singer, sent a 32-page cease-and-desist letter to Google. The letter accused tools such as Veo, Nano Banana, and Gemini of widespread infringement of Disney's copyrights. It included example images demonstrating that highly detailed images of characters like Darth Vader and Iron Man could be generated with simple prompts. Disney outlined four demands in the letter, including an immediate halt to the infringing activities and a cessation of using Disney IP for AI model training.

A Google spokesperson responded by emphasizing the company's longstanding mutually beneficial cooperative relationship with Disney and its commitment to ongoing communication. They also noted that AI training is conducted using publicly available data from the open web and that copyright control mechanisms, such as Google-extended and YouTube Content ID, have been implemented. Additionally, Disney and OpenAI have announced a $1 billion agreement to license Disney's characters for use in OpenAI's generative video application, Sora.