Hollywood Demands Copyright Guardrails from Sora 2 - While Users Complain That's Less Fun

Enthusiasm for Sora 2 'wasn't shared in Hollywood,' reports the Los Angeles Times, 'where the new AI tools have created a swift backlash' that 'appears to be only just the beginning of a bruising legal fight that could shape the future of AI use in the entertainment business.'

[OpenAI] executives went on a charm offensive last year. They reached out to key players in the entertainment industry — including Walt Disney Co. — about potential areas for collaboration and trying to assuage concerns about its technology. This year, the San Francisco-based AI startup took a more assertive approach. Before unveiling Sora 2 to the general public, OpenAI executives had conversations with some studios and talent agencies, putting them on notice that they need to explicitly declare which pieces of intellectual property — including licensed characters — were being opted-out of having their likeness depicted on the AI platform, according to two sources familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment. Actors would be included in Sora 2 unless they opted out, the people said. OpenAI disputes the claim and says that it was always the company's intent to give actors and other public figures control over how their likeness is used.

The response was immediate.... [Big talent agencies objected, along with performers' unions and major studios.] 'Decades of enforceable copyright law establishes that content owners do not need to 'opt out' to prevent infringing uses of their protected IP,' Warner Bros. Discovery said in a statement... The strong pushback from the creative community could be a strategy to force OpenAI into entering licensing agreements for the content they need, legal experts said... One challenge is figuring out a way that fairly compensates talent and rights holders. Several people who work within the entertainment industry ecosystem said they don't believe a flat fee works.

Meanwhile, 'the complete copyright-free-for-all approach that OpenAI took to its new AI video generation model, Sora 2, lasted all of one week,' writes Gizmodo. But that means the service has 'now pissed off its users.'

As 404 Media pointed out, social channels like Twitter and Reddit are now flooded with Sora users who are angry they can't make 10-second clips featuring their favorite characters anymore. One user in the OpenAI subreddit said that being able to play with copyrighted material was 'the only reason this app was so fun.'


Futurism published more reactions, including ''It's official, Sora 2 is completely boring and useless with these copyright restrictions.'
Others accused OpenAI of abusing copyright to hype up its new app. 'This is just classic OpenAI at this point,' another user wrote. 'They do this s*** all the time. Let people have fun for a day or two and then just start censoring like crazy.' The app now has a measly 2.9-star rating on the App Store, indicative of growing disillusionment and frustration with censorship... [It's not dropped to 2.8.]

In an apparent effort to save face, Altman claimed this week that many copyright holders are actually begging to have their characters appear on Sora, instead of complaining about the trend. 'In the case of Sora, we've heard from a lot of concerned rightsholders and also a lot of rightsholders who are like 'My concern is you won't put my character in enough,'' he told the a16z podcast earlier this week. 'So I can completely see a world where subject to the decisions that a rightsholder has, they get more upset with us for not generating their character often enough than too much,' he added. Whether most rightsholders would agree with that sentiment remains to be seen.


Business Insider offers another reaction. After watching Sora 2's main public feed, they write that Sora 2 'seems to be overrun with teenage boys.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.