In a licensing agreement announced on Thursday, Disney will invest $1 billion in OpenAI and add characters like Mickey Mouse, Cinderella, and Luke Skywalker to the AI company’s Sora video-generating tool.
Disney pursued Google at the same time, requesting that the tech giant cease using its copyrighted characters to train its artificial intelligence systems.
The Walt Disney Company is now Sora’s first significant content licensing partner thanks to the OpenAI deal. Sora uses generative artificial intelligence to produce brief movies.
Fans will be permitted to create and distribute videos featuring over 200 Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars characters using Sora, subject to the terms of the three-year licensing agreement.
Sora and other AI video generators have amazed with how fast they can produce lifelike videos using just text cues.
However, a deluge of these videos on social media, including clips of celebrities and public figures who have passed away, has sparked concerns about misinformation, deepfakes, and copyright, in addition to “AI slop” displacing human-generated content.
Disney and OpenAI stated that they are dedicated to using AI responsibly, safeguarding both user safety and creators’ rights.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated, “This agreement demonstrates how AI companies and creative leaders can collaborate responsibly to promote innovation that benefits society, respect the importance of creativity, and help works reach vast new audiences.”
The agreement would “extend the reach of our storytelling through generative AI, while respecting and protecting creators and their works,” according to Disney CEO Robert Iger.
Some user-generated Sora videos will be accessible on the Disney+ streaming platform as part of the agreement.
Disney plans to become a “major customer” of OpenAI, utilizing its technology to create new tools, services, and products. Additionally, ChatGPT will be made available to staff members.
However, proponents of children’s rights condemned the action.
Disney’s choice to collaborate with OpenAI, according to Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay, “is a betrayal of countless children around the world who adore Mickey Mouse, Frozen, and Toy Story.
“OpenAI maintains that children are not allowed to use Sora, but here they are using some of their favorite characters to entice young children to their platform.
Disney is “aiding and abetting OpenAI’s efforts to addict young children to its unsafe platform and products,” he continued.
Disney also sent Google a cease and desist letter on Thursday, requesting that the tech giant refrain from feeding and training its AI models—including its Veo video generator and Imagen and Nano Banana image generators—with Disney content.
In addition to filing lawsuits alongside NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery against AI image generator Midjourney and AI startup Minimax, it had already sent similar cease-and-desist letters to Meta and Character.AI.
“Well, we have been vigilant in defending our intellectual property, and we have pursued other businesses that have not appreciated, valued, or honored it.
In an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street,” Iger stated, “And this is another example of us doing just that.
We have been in conversation with Google, basically expressing our concerns about this.
And in the end, we felt we had no alternative but to send them a cease-and-desist because we didn’t really make any progress, and the talks didn’t yield results.
In a copy of the letter dated December 10, Disney accused Google of “infringing Disney’s copyrights on a massive scale.”
Characters from Star Wars, The Simpsons, Deadpool, and The Lion King were among the examples in the letter that Google’s AI algorithms allegedly produced with ease.
Disney claimed that Google has been “intentionally amplifying” the issue by distributing the illegal content on all of its platforms, including YouTube.
Disney claimed that despite Google’s months-long complaints, the company has not taken any action to address the issue. The letter stated, “Google’s widespread infringement of Disney’s copyrighted works must stop.”
