Character.AI has confirmed it removed Disney-owned characters from its platform after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from the entertainment company. The chatbot startup, which lets users create AI companions modeled on public figures and fictional characters, faced allegations of copyright infringement and reputational harm.
Disney’s legal team argued that unauthorized use of its characters risked associating family-friendly brands with harmful or explicit chatbot outputs. In response, searches for characters including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Captain America, and Luke Skywalker no longer produce results on the platform. However, some Disney-affiliated content, such as Percy Jackson and Hannah Montana, remains accessible. The move underscores growing legal scrutiny of AI platforms that host user-generated chatbots based on copyrighted characters.
