Walt Disney has announced a $1bn equity investment in OpenAI, enabling the AI startup’s Sora video generation tool to use its characters.
Users of Sora will be able to generate short, user-prompted social videos that draw on more than 200 Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars characters as part of a three-year licensing agreement between OpenAI and the entertainment giant.
The agreement – a landmark deal amid intense anxiety in Hollywood over the impact of artificial intelligence on the future of entertainment – will not cover talent likenesses or voices.
Bob Iger, Disney’s CEO, hailed a deal which paired his firm’s “iconic stories and characters” with OpenAI’s AI technology. It will place “imagination and creativity directly into the hands of Disney fans in ways we’ve never seen before”, he claimed.
The deal is OpenAI’s most prominent move into Hollywood after a contentious rollout of Sora and longstanding pushback against AI from many entertainment industry workers. Concerns from writers, actors, visual effects artists and other creatives over AI replacing jobs and using likenesses without consent has led to union protests and copyright lawsuits against AI companies.
Examples from an OpenAI press release. Photograph: OpenAI
When OpenAI launched its latest iteration of Sora earlier this year, it immediately ran into a slew of potential copyright issues, as feeds became dominated by videos featuring characters such as SpongeBob SquarePants or Pikachu – sometimes generated to appear in Nazi-like clothing.
Racist depictions of Martin Luther King Jr prompted OpenAI to ban the use of his likeness on the platform, while the daughter of Malcolm X called seeing her father’s image on Sora “deeply disrespectful and hurtful”.
Disney itself has also been concerned over the unauthorized use of its characters by generative AI platforms. The company sent a stern cease-and-desist letter to the Character.AI chatbot firm in October, alleging that the platform was “blatantly infringing on Disney’s copyrights” through using the likeness of its characters.
On Wednesday evening, attorneys representing Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter to Google, demanding that the technology company’s AI systems stop alleged infringement, Variety reported.
The OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, has been on a charm offensive that included a recent appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, the US talkshow. On Thursday, he touted the firm’s deal with Disney as proof that artificial intelligence companies could partner with the entertainment sector.
“This agreement shows how AI companies and creative leaders can work together responsibly to promote innovation that benefits society, respect the importance of creativity, and help works reach vast new audiences,” Altman said.
In addition to Disney letting its characters appear in Sora, the company will also use OpenAI’s application programming interfaces to build new products and tools, becoming a major customer of the ChatGPT maker. A selection of the videos made by users on Sora will also be available for streaming on the Disney+ platform. It will also deploy ChatGPT for its employees, the companies said.
“Technological innovation has continually shaped the evolution of entertainment, bringing with it new ways to create and share great stories with the world,” said Iger. “The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence marks an important moment for our industry, and through this collaboration with OpenAI we will thoughtfully and responsibly extend the reach of our storytelling through generative AI, while respecting and protecting creators and their works.”
