OpenAI's Sora 2 Faces Copyright Backlash, Prompts Policy Shift

No More Pikachu Oppenheimer? OpenAI Promises Rightsholders More Control Over Sora Creations

Based in London, Will is passionate about the intersection of tech and human lives, with bylines in BBC News, Vice, and more. Don't miss out on our latest stories. Add PCMag as a preferred source on Google. Since OpenAI released its Sora 2 AI video generator as an iOS app earlier this month, we've seen a surge of creative, bizarre, and even jarring content, ranging from fake interactions between deceased historical figures to depictions of iconic fictional characters, including Pikachu inserted into almost every movie imaginable, from The Lord of the Rings to Oppenheimer. The idea, according to CEO Sam Altman, is to make people smile -- and generate revenue for OpenAI. He insists that "this new kind of engagement will accrue a lot of value" for rightsholders, but in a new blog post, he acknowledges that they "want the ability to specify how their characters can be used (including not at all)." To that end, OpenAI will "give rightsholders more granular control over generation of characters, similar to the opt-in model for likeness but with additional controls," Altman says. Details are scant, and Altman cautions users to "expect a very high rate of change from us." One idea it's trying, however, is a revenue-sharing arrangement with copyright holders. "The exact model will take some trial and error to figure out, but we plan to start very soon," Altman says. "Our hope is that the new kind of engagement is even more valuable than the revenue share, but of course we want both to be valuable." Altman's blog post notes "the remarkable creative output of Japan." However, Japanese politician Akihisa Shiozaki said on X that "there are serious legal and political issues" with Sora. "To protect and nurture Japan's leading creators and content industry, I think we should respond as soon as possible," he wrote, adding, "(It seems that Disney and Marvel characters are somehow not displayable)." How anime characters are used isn't the only potentially controversial issue that has emerged around Sora. OpenAI's testing reveals that Sora has a 1.6% chance of creating sexual deepfakes while using a person's likeness, despite the safeguards it has in place. Disclosure: Ziff Davis, PCMag's parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

OpenAI's Sora 2 must stop allowing copyright infringement, Motion Picture Association says

OpenAI recently announced an opt-in model to allow rightsholders "more granular control" over their intellectual property. The Motion Picture Association on Monday urged OpenAI to "take immediate and decisive action" against its new video creation model Sora 2, which is being used to produce content that it says is infringing on copyrighted media. Following the Sora app's rollout last week, users have been swarming the platform with AI-generated clips featuring characters from popular shows and brands. "Since Sora 2's release, videos that infringe our members' films, shows, and characters have proliferated on OpenAI's service and across social media," MPA CEO Charles Rivkin said in a statement. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman clarified in a blog post that the company will give rightsholders "more granular control" over how their characters are used. But Rivkin said that OpenAI "must acknowledge it remains their responsibility - not rightsholders' - to prevent infringement on the Sora 2 service," and that "well-established copyright law safeguards the rights of creators and applies here." OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment. Concerns erupted immediately after Sora videos were created last week featuring everything from James Bond playing poker with Altman to body cam footage of cartoon character Mario evading the police. Although OpenAI previously held an opt-out system, which placed the burden on studios to request that characters not appear on Sora, Altman's follow-up blog post said the platform was changing to an opt-in model, suggesting that Sora would not allow the usage of copyrighted characters without permission. However, Altman noted that the company may not be able to prevent all IP from being misused. "There may be some edge cases of generations that get through that shouldn't, and getting our stack to work well will take some iteration," Altman wrote. Copyright concerns have emerged as a major issue during the generative AI boom. Disney and Universal sued AI image creator Midjourney in June, alleging that the company used and distributed AI-generated characters from their films and disregarded requests to stop. Disney also sent a cease-and-desist letter to AI startup Character.AI in September, warning the company to stop using its copyrighted characters without authorization.

You Can't Use Copyrighted Characters in OpenAI's Sora Anymore and People Are Freaking Out

The complete copyright-free-for-all approach that OpenAI took to its new AI video generation model, Sora 2, lasted all of one week. After initially requiring copyright holders to opt out of having their content appear in Sora-generated videos, CEO Sam Altman announced that the company will be moving to an "opt-in" model that will "give rightsholders more granular control over generation of characters"â€"and Sora obsessives are not taking it particularly well. Given the type of content that was being generated with Sora and shared via the TikTok-style social app that OpenAI launched specifically to host user-generated Sora videos, the change shouldn't come as a shock. Almost immediately, the platform was inundated with copyrighted material being used in ways that the rightsholders almost certainly did not care for, unless you think Nickelodeon really loved the subversiveness of Nazi SpongeBob. On Monday, the Motion Picture Association became one of the loudest voices calling for OpenAI to put an end to the potential infringement. It didn't take long for OpenAI to respond and acquiesce. In a blog post, Altman said the new approach to copyrighted material in Sora will require rightsholders to opt-in to having their characters and content usedâ€"but he's very sure that copyright holders love the videos, actually. "We are hearing from a lot of rightsholders who are very excited for this new kind of 'interactive fan fiction' and think this new kind of engagement will accrue a lot of value to them, but want the ability to specify how their characters can be used (including not at all)," Altman wrote, stating that his company wants to "let rightsholders decide how to proceed." Altman also admitted, "There may be some edge cases of generations that get through that shouldn't, and getting our stack to work well will take some iteration." It's unclear if that will play with rightsholders. MPA CEO Charles Rivkin said in a statement that OpenAI "must acknowledge it remains their responsibilityâ€"not rightsholders’â€"to prevent infringement on the Sora 2 service," and said "Well-established copyright law safeguards the rights of creators and applies here.†While OpenAI might be giving copyright holders more control of the outputs of its model, it doesn't appear that they had much say on the inputs. A report from the Washington Post showed how the first version of Sora was pretty clearly trained on copyrighted material that the company didn’t ask permission to use. It's not clear that OpenAI went out and got those rights to train Sora 2, but the generator is very good at spitting out accurate recreations of copyrighted material in a way that it could only do if it was fed a whole lot of existing content during training. The biggest AI training case thus far saw Anthropic pay out $1.5 billion to settle a copyright infringement case with authors of books the company pirated to train its models. The judge in that case did find that using copyrighted material for training without permission is fair use, though other courts may not agree with that call. Earlier this year, OpenAI asked the Trump administration to call AI model training fair use. So a lot of OpenAI's strategy around Sora appears to be fucking around and hoping, if it makes the right allies, it'll never have to find out. OpenAI may be able to appease copyright holders by shifting its Sora policies, but it's 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." Another claimed, "Moral policing and leftist ideology are destroying America's AI industry." So, you know, it seems like they're handling this well.

OpenAI announces sweeping new copyright rule for Sora 2 -- here's what you need to know

Sora 2 has quickly become the biggest AI video generator in the world. But to get there, OpenAI made a controversial choice, allowing users to make videos of real people and in the style of real creators' work. This is a decision that OpenAI is now looking to rollback, or at least change slightly -- allowing creators to opt out of their work being used. "We have been learning quickly from how people are using Sora and taking feedback from users, rightsholders, and other interested groups. We of course spent a lot of time discussing this before launch, but now that we have a product out we can do more than just theorize," Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, stated on his personal blog. "First, we will give rightsholders more granular control over generation of characters, similar to the opt-in model for likeness but with additional controls. We are hearing from a lot of rightsholders who are very excited for this new kind of "interactive fan fiction" and think this new kind of engagement will accrue a lot of value to them, but want the ability to specify how their characters can be used (including not at all)." Altman goes on to say that OpenAI hopes that most people will want their work interacted with via Sora, but wants the option to be there for everyone. However, he does warn that this safeguarding isn't 100% accurate. "There may be some edge cases of generations that get through that shouldn't, and getting our stack to work well will take some iteration," Altman stated in the blog. Altman goes on to explain that they are now looking at ways to make money from Sora 2. People are generating at a higher rate than they expected and it is costing the company. However, they are going to trial a system where, if artists opt in to their work being used, that some of the shares of profit generated by Sora 2 could go to those artists. Altman ended the blog post by stating: "Please expect a very high rate of change from us; it reminds me of the early days of ChatGPT. We will make some good decisions and some missteps, but we will take feedback and try to fix the missteps very quickly. We plan to do our iteration on different approaches in Sora, but then apply it consistently across our products." When it comes to AI image and video generation, companies have taken two very separate routes. Some, like Midjourney, xAI, and OpenAI, have leaned into a more open system, allowing users to create work in more styles and, in some cases, recreating real people. This attracts a much wider audience but is unsurprisingly much more complicated for the company, raising a wealth of safeguarding issues. A few months ago, we saw Midjourney hit by a lawsuit from Disney for copyright infringement, and OpenAI has already had a number of controversial deepfakes flood in on Sora 2. Allowing users to opt in and out of copyright usage will put Sora 2 somewhere in the middle of these two approaches.

Motion Picture Association Says OpenAI Must Prevent Copyright Infringment on Sora 2

The Motion Picture Association (MPA) has called on OpenAI to address what it describes as widespread copyright infringement stemming from the company's new video generation model, Sora 2. In a statement this week, MPA CEO Charles Rivkin says that "since Sora 2's release, videos that infringe our members' films, shows, and characters have proliferated on OpenAI's service and across social media." The group is urging OpenAI to "take immediate and decisive action" to curb the issue. Sora 2, launched last week, allows users to create short video clips from text prompts. Following its rollout, social media has been flooded with AI-generated videos depicting recognizable characters from major franchises. CNBC reports that examples include clips of James Bond playing poker with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and body camera footage featuring Mario, the Nintendo mascot, evading the police. OpenAI has acknowledged the concerns. In a blog post, Altman said the company plans to provide rightsholders with "more granular control" over how their intellectual property is used within Sora. He also announced a shift from an opt-out system -- where studios had to request their characters not be used -- to an opt-in model requiring explicit permission before copyrighted characters can appear. Still, Altman cautioned that the system may not be flawless. "There may be some edge cases of generations that get through that shouldn't, and getting our stack to work well will take some iteration," he writes. Rivkin, however, emphasizes that OpenAI must take primary responsibility for policing content on its platform. He says OpenAI "must acknowledge it remains their responsibility -- not rightsholders -- to prevent infringement on the Sora 2 service," adding that "well-established copyright law safeguards the rights of creators and applies here." OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment by CNBC. Zelda Williams, daughter of the late actor and comedian Robin Williams, this week condemned the use of artificial intelligence to create digital recreations of her father. Calling the video creations a "Frankensteinian monster, cobbled together from the worst bits of everything this industry is." It remains to be seen how rightsholders will responds to Sora 2. It took a long time for Disney to launch a lawsuit against AI image generator Midjourney.

Sora 2 just ran into Hollywood's legal wall - talent agents are calling for control over AI-generated stars

OpenAI has begun adjusting Sora 2's parameters and hints at future guardrails and revenue sharing OpenAI's new Sora 2 AI video generator and immediately popular new social app have been out for a handful of days, but the company is already facing backlash from some of the most powerful people in Hollywood. Creative Artists Agency (CAA), which represents some of the biggest names in entertainment, has issued a blistering statement condemning Sora 2. In an unsigned memo, CAA accused OpenAI of disregarding the rights of its clients and framed the issue as a moral test. The Cameo feature that lets users star in their AI-generated clips came in for particular ire, albeit not by name. "It is clear that Open AI/Sora exposes our clients and their intellectual property to significant risk. The question is, does OpenAI and its partner companies believe that humans, writers, artists, actors, directors, producers, musicians, and athletes deserve to be compensated and credited for the work they create?" CAA wrote in the memo. "Or does Open AI believe they can just steal it, disregarding global copyright principles and blatantly dismissing creators' rights, as well as the many people and companies who fund the production, creation, and publication of these humans' work? In our opinion, the answer to this question is obvious." It's the most direct public confrontation yet between Hollywood talent and Silicon Valley's AI experimenters. CAA's tone is clearly meant to sound intimidating. And it makes sense as the Cameo feature shows how relatively easy it is to mimic someone's likeness and voice with only a short example clip. And then it takes only one viral AI remix to cross from fun into infringement. CAA isn't alone in its stance. Rival agencies WME and UTA have released their own similarly phrased statements, with WME telling OpenAI to remove all its clients from Sora 2. Sora 2's launch is the familiar startup approach where mistakes get made, then you fix them. The entertainment industry's approach is to cover every possible licensing, consent, and credit issue well before a single movie frame is seen. Those two approaches clash. And OpenAI is taking heed. CEO Sam Altman himself seems to recognize that Sora 2 may have overstepped. In a cautiously worded blog post, it conceded potential issues and promised changes, potential partnerships, and monetization to come. OpenAI seems keen to reassure the industry that Sora 2 won't be turning Brad Pitt into a TikTok cameo without permission. The company confirmed that Cameo is supposed to give public figures control of their own likeness, requiring them to upload a Cameo and make it publicly available explicitly; otherwise, the technology should reject attempts to do so by others. If you're a celebrity and haven't handed over the digital keys yourself, Sora isn't supposed to let users drop you into their AI-generated videos. For deceased public figures, their estates are able to request removal, which OpenAI says it will honor. Whether this will stave off lawsuits is unclear, however. The system leans heavily on individuals to set permissions. And that's not enough for some. The Motion Picture Association has bluntly warned OpenAI that it is the AI company's responsibility to prevent copyright violations. Even with controls in place, there's a haziness around lookalikes, deepfakes that are legally distinct but might feel too close for comfort. And skepticism has only deepened in recent months as AI-generated videos of deceased celebrities like Robin Williams and Gene Wilder have gone viral, often crossing emotional boundaries for fans and families alike. Sora's apparent openness to estate requests gestures toward making up for that, but it still leaves the door open to bad actors who won't bother asking permission. The fallout around all of these issues will likely dictate how future consumer AI video tools operate. CAA's memo points toward a willingness to make AI videos with celebrities possible, as long as the right rules and compensation are in place. "Control, permission for use, and compensation is a fundamental right of these workers," CAA wrote. "Anything less than the protection of creators and their rights is unacceptable."

Sam Altman Says Copyright Holders Are Begging for Their Characters to Be Included in Sora

Rightsholders are apparently worried their characters won't be put in "enough" Sora videos. OpenAI's latest text-to-video generating app, Sora 2, exploded onto the scene late last week, quickly devolving into a mind-numbing mess of AI slop. Before OpenAI stemmed the flood with crudely implemented guardrails, users immediately started generating footage featuring copyrighted materials, from SpongeBob SquarePants cooking up meth to CEO Sam Altman grilling a photorealistic Pikachu. The spread of copyrighted material on the app sparked a debate surrounding the mass infringement of protected intellectual property, which has already led to major Hollywood studios coming after OpenAI's competitors. But despite the app's messy launch, Altman has remained adamant that rightsholders are already lining up to have their IP featured on the platform. During a newly-released chat with the a16z podcast's cofounder Ben Horowitz and general partner Erik Torenberg, Altman said that "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.'" While they allegedly told him that they want "restrictions" so their characters wouldn't "say some crazy offensive thing," Altman says copyright holders want "people to interact" and to "develop the relationship" to make their franchises become "more valuable." "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 told Horowitz and Torenberg. It'd be interesting to know the balance of rightsholders who have reached out to OpenAI who are upset that their characters are being featured on the app versus ones who want greater visibility on the platform. Major content producers have historically bristled at having their IP reproduced without authorization. A litany of lawsuits aimed at AI image generator Midjourney and embattled AI chatbot company Character.AI suggest that OpenAI may be facing an uphill battle to get rightsholders on its side. Case in point, last week, Character.AI announced that it was removing chatbots directly inspired by Disney characters from its platform after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from the media juggernaut. In short, the company's launch of Sora 2 seems to have preceded working out many of the logistics. The mass infringement of well-known copyrighted materials, in particular, appears to have caught Altman off guard. "Another thing you learn once you launch one of these things is how people use them versus how you think they're going to use them," he told a16z. "And people are certainly using Sora in the ways we thought they were going to use it, but they're also using it in ways that are very different." For now, Altman said that he wants to show the world what society looks like when tools to generate incriminating CCTV footage of crimes that were never committed -- or even entire "South Park" episodes -- land in the hands of anybody with a smartphone and an invite code. In other words, Sora 2 is OpenAI's grand AI slop experiment that may continue to take unexpected turns. "I also think it is important to give society a taste of what's coming on this co-evolution point," he said on the podcast. But "there will be some adjustment that society has to go through," Altman added.

OpenAI hastily retreats from gung-ho copyright policy after embarrassing Sora video output like AI Sam Altman surrounded by Pokémon saying 'I hope Nintendo doesn't sue us'

OpenAI updates its policy for copyrighted content in Sora after a wave of viral videos containing Japanese IP. Less than a week after OpenAI launched its Sora 2 AI video generation model on September 30, it's already backtracking to change its policy around copyrighted content, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. In a blog post published on October 3, Sam Altman responded to a wave of copyright concerns surrounding Sora 2 and announced that OpenAI is updating its policy for copyrighted content to make it opt-in, meaning Sora will refuse prompts containing copyrighted material unless the copyright holder specifically gives OpenAI permission to use it. Altman stated in the blog post: "We will give rightsholders more granular control over generation of characters, similar to the opt-in model for likeness but with additional controls. We are hearing from a lot of rightsholders who are very excited for this new kind of 'interactive fan fiction' and think this new kind of engagement will accrue a lot of value to them, but want the ability to specify how their characters can be used (including not at all)." "In particular, we'd like to acknowledge the remarkable creative output of Japan -- we are struck by how deep the connection between users and Japanese content is!" This statement and the policy change come after a plethora of Sora-generated videos were posted online last week containing characters from Japanese game and anime studios, including IP from Nintendo, Pokémon, One Piece, Demon Slayer, Studio Ghibli, and others. One such video sums up the entire situation: an AI-generated, photo-realistic, 10-second clip of Sam Altman surrounded by a pack of Pokémon while saying, "I hope Nintendo doesn't sue us." This video is just one of many examples, but you'll have a much harder time finding Sora-generated videos containing Marvel or Disney characters. As reported by Automaton, Sora appears to be refusing prompts containing references to American IP, but Japanese IP didn't seem to be getting the same treatment over the past week. Japanese lawyer and House of Representatives member Akihisa Shiozaki called for action to protect creatives in a post on X (formerly Twitter), which has been translated by Automaton: "I've tried out [Sora 2] myself, but I felt that it poses a serious legal and political problem. We need to take immediate action if we want to protect leading Japanese creators and the domestic content industry, and help them further develop. (I wonder why Disney and Marvel characters can't be displayed)." Ahead of Sora 2's launch, the Wall Street Journal reported OpenAI's initial opt-out policy for copyright holders, which required creators to specifically tell OpenAI if they didn't want their characters or work to be used in Sora. This means that if a copyright holder didn't opt-out, it was assumed their content was allowed in Sora prompts. In contrast, real people such as celebrities and other public figures were opt-in by default, meaning OpenAI will not allow users to create videos of them without their permission. The threat of copyright infringement lawsuits stemming from that policy difference is likely why OpenAI changed its tune this weekend.

OpenAI's Sora 2 Is Generating Video of SpongeBob Cooking Meth, Highlighting Copyright Concerns

Just two days ago, OpenAI released its latest text-to-video-and audio-generator, Sora 2, which comes with a built-in -- and currently invite-only -- TikTok-style social app for sharing AI videos. It didn't take long for users to notice that the company did little to ensure it didn't spit out grotesque -- and possibly copyright-infringing -- materials. In one video that went viral on X-formerly-Twitter, a cleanly-animated clip shows Nickelodeon's SpongeBob SquarePants cooking up blue crystals in a meth lab under the sea, much in the style of AMC's iconic "Breaking Bad" television series. It's not just unmistakably SpongeBob and his friend Patrick visually taking on the role of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman in "Breaking Bad"; the clip features fully-fledged, AI-generated takes on the characters' iconic voices as well. "We don't call it 'stuff,' Patrick," the anthropomorphized sponge tells its compatriot. "It's Blue Barnacle. Purest you'll find under the sea." The clip demonstrates how little OpenAI has done to prevent its tool from being used to generate copyright-protected material. It's a hotly debated topic that has already led to major Hollywood studios suing AI generator companies. Last month, Warner Bros. Discovery sued Midjourney for infringement, joining Disney and NBCU, which had teamed up to sue the firm for similar reasons in June. For Sora 2, OpenAI has also said that rights holders will have to actively opt out of having their copyrighted materials appear in generations, as the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week. "Given the intense competition in the space, I think they think, 'maybe we will ask for forgiveness instead of asking for permission,'" Georgetown Law School professor Kristelia García told the newspaper. OpenAI has repeatedly argued that the use of copyrighted material falls under "fair use," a thorny doctrine that allows the use of copyrighted material without permission for transformative purposes like commentary, criticism, or news reporting. OpenAI has also leaned on a familiar argument: that if the United States doesn't do it, China will. "If the PRC's developers have unfettered access to data and American companies are left without fair use access, the race for AI is effectively over," reads an OpenAI policy proposal to the White House's Office of Science and Technology. While the debate rages on, OpenAI's hot new video generator is already clogging up social media feeds with a torrent of AI slop. A search on X reveals a litany of other highly detailed AI-generated clips featuring SpongeBob Squarepants and his co-stars. One video shows the animated character being taught the programming language C++. Another clip shows him mining cryptocurrencies while surrounded by computer hardware. Others went in an even edgier direction, as with a clip of a "German-dubbed Nazi SpongeBob." Futurism has reached out to Nickelodeon for comment. Beyond copyright-infringing content, Sora 2 has also been used to generate other controversial videos, such as a 1990s TV commercial for a children's toy inspired by the island of deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. OpenAI's own Sora developer, Gabriel Petersson, also shared an AI-generated video of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman getting caught after trying to steal a GPU from a Target store, raising concerns that the tool could be used to impersonate others or even frame them for a crime they didn't commit. The Washington Post's Drew Harwell also demonstrated in a video how easy it is to generate fake body cam footage of a Black person being arrested after being accused of shoplifting. "Here's a video I made of Sam [Altman] leading an ICE raid," Harwell said in the video, "and again, none of this was blocked." OpenAI claimed in a blog post accompanying its Sora 2 announcement that it has "made sure safety is built in from the very start" by "filtering harmful content" and adding "audio safeguards" that block "attempts to generate music that imitates living artists or existing works." It also said that it will "honor takedown requests from creators who believe a Sora output infringes on their work." Given what we've seen so far, those requests could soon start to pour in.

OpenAI Boldly Uses Copyrighted Characters Like Pikachu In Sora 2

Have you ever wanted to see Zagreus from Hades riding a scooter? Me neither, but you can with Sora 2 Generative AI continues to plague every creative industry you care about, and despite the obvious copyright infringement and legal cases that surround it, companies like OpenAI keep training their models on licensed art. Sora, OpenAI’s video generation model, launched its updated “Sora 2†model on September 30. The app trains itself on copyrighted material by default, with the burden on copyright holders to actively opt out of it. As a result, there’s a lot of AI-generated slop leaking out onto the internet featuring huge characters you know and love. 404 Media has some videos of Pikachu and what appears to be a Nazi version of SpongeBob SquarePants doing everything from ASMR to boxing matches. By default, Sora 2 can generate animated videos of almost any copyrighted material you prompt it with because genAI companies seem to think the rules governing how copyright IP is typically handled don’t apply to them. So now, companies like Nickelodeon and Nintendo will have to hit OpenAI up to tell the company to stop using their characters and iconography, rather than the other way around. It’s a bold strategy considering that Disney, NBC, and Warner Bros. are all suing Midjourney for using characters from their IP. Artists who work on the Magic: The Gathering card game have also sued Midjourney for scraping their artwork to train the generative AI model. The Pokémon Company may not be taking immediate action against the Department of Homeland Security for using its characters in a video posted to social media, but I can’t imagine the litigious company is going to sit by while Pikachu’s image is used in AI slop that puts the mascot in a bad light. We’ve reached out to The Pokémon Company, Supergiant Games, and Toei Animation about their respective characters appearing in videos generated by the app. On top of the slop featuring copyrighted characters, Sora 2 seems to let people make deepfakes of themselves or public figures. The new app has a TikTok-like feed that lets you endlessly scroll through the generated videos, and if you scroll long enough, you might see deepfakes of real people, despite OpenAI claiming it has safeguards in place to protect people from this. Some have even reported seeing some wild shit, like a blackface version of actor Scarlett Johansson performing in the musical Hamilton. OpenAI notably got into legal hot water with the actor last year when the company was using a voice that sounded very similar to her performance as an AI in the movie Her for its own ChatGPT AI chatbot. The entire thing seems like a series of legal battles in the making, but it also has some artists and animators disheartened as the possibility looms that animation companies may be increasingly inclined to use it to cut costs at the expense of a human touch. Personally, I think that even if these videos look better than they did a year ago, they still look like shit. Even the more fluid, action-packed scenes Sora generates still have clear tells of AI generation, like unnatural shifts and glitches in the animation. But for any who hope to use this to cut costs, quality is probably not a priority. Bigwigs who insist that AI is the future only do so because they’re the ones who stand to benefit from it, while the artists who create and the people who enjoy their work get the short end of the stick. Maybe some of IP lawyers will step in and try to put a stop to it all, but it sometimes feels like every time one AI slop machine gets taken down, another one sprouts up in its place.

Horrific Sora 2 Video Shows Sam Altman Grilling a Dead Pikachu

"Alright Nintendo it may be time to assemble your famed lawyer squad." In case you missed it, OpenAI's latest video generating tool Sora 2 launched earlier this week, and instantly did gangbusters at the slop office. Users gleefully rushed to generate loads of feverish clips that place OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in all sorts of absurd scenarios -- which we covered extensively in another blog -- and with such ferocity that they've basically taken over AI corners of social media. And so rather than demonstrating a tool that will revolutionize the arts, as AI companies so often claim their image and text-regurgitating tech will do, the social media buzz around Sora 2 has been a delirious case in point of how people largely use it to churn out dumb and edgy memes and total nonsense -- slop, in the parlance -- not to mention potentially damaging misinformation, such as faking convincing surveillance footage of people committing crimes. But it's also raised the specter of another issue that could be fatal to the company's very existence: copyright infringement. As our first piece of evidence, we submit this alarming Sora-made video of Altman grilling a slain and disturbingly lifelike Pikachu. "Pikachu on the grill here," says the AI Altman, as what is unmistakably the iconic yellow Pokémon lies sizzling beneath his prodding tongs. "It's already got a beautiful char and it smells like somebody plugged in a chicken." "I'm gonna carve it into some thick steaks," he continues, briefly showing a closeup of medium-done Pikachu meat. "Crust on the outside, pink and juice in the middle. Cheers." This is far from the only Sora video spoofing Nintendo characters. Many others depict Mario and Luigi. Justine Moore, an investing partner at the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, gushed that her favorite Sora trend was "putting Pikachu in every movie," sharing examples like "Saving Private Pikachu." Whatever a user's favorite Pokemon is, it'll be in their little video. Some of Sora's clips show that their creators are fully aware that their go-to slop machine de jour is making a mockery of copyright law -- in fact, maybe that's part of how they get their kicks. In a video that shows dozens of recognizable Pokemon bounding across a field, for instance, a deepfaked Altman watches on with a worried grimace. "I hope Nintendo doesn't sue us," the AI Altman says. The success of the generative AI industry has been predicated on having essentially free access to every piece of art, writing, and video that's ever been uploaded to the internet -- and major players are paranoid that they'll someday have to pay the price for that. In August, the Claude chatbot maker Anthropic pleaded to an appeals court that having to dole out damages to all the writers whose books it trained on without permission would "financially ruin" the entire AI industry, spelling out -- loud and clear -- the existential angst surrounding IP. Needless to say, then, that OpenAI is playing with fire. Nintendo in particular, as one of the biggest video game publishers in the world, is notoriously hard-nosed about protecting its intellectual property. Its iconic video game character Kirby, in fact, is named after its attorney who won a key copyright suit against Universal Pictures in the 1980s. It's ruthlessly pursued anyone it perceives as using its IP without permission ever since. And there's a whole graveyard filled with enthusiasts who shared copies of its game to play on emulators, a term for software that simulates old game consoles, or the developers that make them. It's even gone after emulators that preserved its games that were no longer for sale anywhere and were considered "abandonware" -- even though sharing these dead games, you'd think, would have no meaningful impact on its bottom line. Gamers have long resented Nintendo for its litigious streak. So it says something that some, after witnessing a deluge of AI bastardizations of Pokémon, are now hoping that the Japanese corporation will sic its legal team on OpenAI. Whether Nintendo decides to pursue legal action is unknown at this point. But just the other day, fellow IP powerhouse Disney issued a cease and desist letter to the chatbot platform Character.AI, demanding that it remove all its AI companions that imitate its copyrighted characters. Disney also brought a copyright suit against the image and video AI tool Midjourney in June -- so entertainment heavyweights have shown that they're willing to pick a fight with big names in AI.

Sora App Might Not Let You Generate Videos of Pikachu and SpongeBob Anymore

Sora users can also set restrictions on how their Cameos are used OpenAI is making several changes to the Sora app, including changing the policy for copyright holders and giving users more control over how their likeness is being used. With this, rightsholders do not have to opt out of the Sora app, and instead, for the artificial intelligence (AI) video model to generate a copyrighted character, they must have opted in. This could result in the disappearance of a large number of videos that feature characters such as Pikachu, SpongeBob, Power Rangers, and Michael Jackson. OpenAI Backtracks on Sora App's Copyright Policy Ever since its launch, the Sora app has been a hit among users. The invite-only iOS app, which is powered by the Sora 2 AI model, allows them to generate 10-second videos of random objects, fictional characters (including the copyrighted ones), and even themselves (this requires uploading a video and verifying the identity). Users can also use a feature called Cameo to generate videos of other users, as long as they've consented to it. However, just days after its debut, it appears the Sora app has faced some backlash from copyright holders and users. The app launched with an opt-out policy for rightsholders, which means they would have to explicitly highlight that they did not want their characters to be generated by the AI model for it to be off-limits. But now, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman mentioned in a blog post that rightsholders will get "more granular control over generation of characters, similar to the opt-in model for likeness but with additional controls." The granular control essentially lets copyright holders set limits on how their characters can be used. Bill Peebles, Head of Sora at OpenAI, also posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) to convey the same line of thinking to users. Users can now give instructions to Sora to set limits on the type of generations others can make with their Cameo. For instance, Pebbles says, users can mention, "Don't put me in videos that involve political commentary" or "Don't let me say this word." This can be found in Settings > Edit Cameo > Cameo Preferences > Restrictions.

CAA Calls OpenAI's Sora "Significant Risk" to Its Clients

MPA Chief: OpenAI "Needs to Take Immediate and Decisive Action" to Prevent IP Infringement On Sora Is Hollywood opting in or out? Early signs are that the major studios and talent agencies are now starting to circle the wagons over Open AI's latest product Sora 2, an invite-only, TikTok-style video app debuting on Sept. 30 that allows users to scan their face and place themselves in hyperrealistic clips. Creative Artists Agency, the Bryan Lourd-led major talent firm repping A-listers like Brad Pitt and Scarlett Johansson, is the latest to publicly draw a line in the sand on Sora 2, which can generate clips of major studios' characters featuring the likenesses of star talent. CAA's statement, which goes unattributed to a single executive, takes a broader approach than just saying that the major agency is opting its clients out of OpenAI's latest tool. In fact, it doesn't explicitly use the words "opt out" at all but frames Sora 2 as a "misuse" of emerging technology that "exposes our clients and their intellectual property to significant risk." The missive, perhaps designed more as a public stand, stands in slight contrast to its longtime rival agency WME's approach. That memo, issued by head of digital strategy Chris Jacquemin as guidance to agents, "we have notified OpenAI that all WME clients be opted out of the latest Sora AI update, regardless of whether IP rights holders have opted out IP our clients are associated with." CAA's full memo is below: "CAA is unwavering in our commitment to protect our clients and the integrity of their creations. The misuse of new technologies carries consequences that reach far beyond entertainment and media, posing serious and harmful risks to individuals, businesses, and societies globally. It is clear that Open AI/Sora exposes our clients and their intellectual property to significant risk. The question is, does OpenAI and its partner companies believe that humans, writers, artists, actors, directors, producers, musicians, and athletes deserve to be compensated and credited for the work they create? Or does Open AI believe they can just steal it, disregarding global copyright principles and blatantly dismissing creators' rights, as well as the many people and companies who fund the production, creation, and publication of these humans' work? In our opinion, the answer to this question is obvious. Control, permission for use, and compensation is a fundamental right of these workers. Anything less than the protection of creators and their rights is unacceptable. We are open to hearing the solutions that Open AI has to these critical issues and remain steadfast in our work with intellectual property businesses and leaders, and creative guilds and unions, as well as state and federal legislators and global policymakers, to answer these challenges and set an aligned path for the future."

Did OpenAI really not see the Sora 2 copyright controversy coming?

People are already finding ways around the new restrictions. OpenAI's launch of its Sora 2 AI video generator and Sora social media app is in disarray after it backtracked following complaints about copyright theft. The company's claim to have been surprised by the controversy and users' rapid circumvention of new controls demonstrates an outstanding lack of thought before the launch of such powerful tech. To recap, Sora 2 is a new AI model that can generate much more realistic and controllable video than its predeccessor. OpenAI, the company behind Chat GPT, launched the model along with an iOS app that it intended as a new form of social media where users can generate deepfakes of themselves and their friends. Initially, copyright holders were told they had to opt out if they didn't want their intellectual property to appear in videos generated by the model. After a week of chaos in which people generated AI videos of things like a Nazi SpongeBob SquarePants and ads for 'Epstein Island' children's toys, OpenAI backtracked and switched to an opt-in policy. To try to sway people to opt in, it promised to give rightsholders more control over the generation of characters. Bill Peebles, OpenAI's head of Sora, posted on X (above) that users can specify how their cameo is used through text instructions, such as "don't put me in videos that involve political commentary" or "don't let me say this word." Some users have reacted furiously, claiming that Sora 2 is now practically useless because they continuously receive warnings that their video generation requests breach the new guardrails. But others are already finding ways around the new controls, using unofficial images or changing character names to avoid the app detecting that third-party IP. Ultimately, the problem is in Sora's training and OpenAI's whole approach to AI ethics. Incredibly, OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman has suggested that he wasn't expecting the app to be so controversial. Considering the well-documented concerns about copyright theft in generative AI training, including several ongoing lawsuits, that suggests he must have been living under a rock for the past few years. The Verge cites the CEO as saying in a Q&A response: "I think the theory of what it was going to feel like to people, and then actually seeing the thing, people had different responses. It felt more different to images than people expected." Sam also seems to have been surprised to learn that users might not want their deepfakes to say offensive things. He said expected people would either want to make their deepfakes (dubbed 'cameos') public or not, but not that their decision might be more nuanced. "They don't want their cameo to say offensive things or things that they find deeply problematic," the billionaire CEO was surprised to learn. Another fear around Sora is that it could plunge us into a crisis of misinformation and fake news. Sora adds a watermark to videos by default, but it's hardly difficult to remove. Sam said in the Q&A Monday that he knew that "people are already finding ways to remove it", suggesting that the CEO of one of the world's biggest tech companies has just learned that AI watermark removers exist or that you can easily mask out a watermark in a video-editing program. The whole debacle shows OpenAI's haphazard approach to launching its tech. It veers to and fro between trying to paint a picture of responsibility and promoting its models for their ability to rip off well-known art styles and copyright material. For the launch of Chat GPT 4, it actively encouraged the brief AI Studio Ghibli craze with Sam using a Ghiblified picture of himself as his profile image on X. Is the company and its leadership really so out of touch that it didn't predict the reaction that Sora generated? Or is it playing a game of testing how far it can go, releasing things without controls to generate hype and then rowing back when it fears legal fallout or harm to its relationships with major media companies?

WME to OpenAI: All Our Clients Are Opting Out of Sora 2

Nearly three years after OpenAI kickstarted an arms race with the public debut of its hallucinatory text generator ChatGPT, the Sam Altman-run firm launched a new frenzy with the release of its Sora 2, a video app that allows users to scan their face and place themselves in hyperrealistic clips. But major studio executives and talent agency chiefs have been more preoccupied with how easily Sora is now able to spit out regurgitated intellectual property. Prompts can generate characters and scenes from, say, Bob's Burgers, SpongeBob SquarePants, Gravity Falls, Pokémon, Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, as The Hollywood Reporter has detailed in using OpenAI's latest tool. Not only have the likenesses of the characters been featured but those characters can look and sound like the studios' versions, raising questions about what control -- if any -- talent has over their likeness when users can endlessly prompt Sora 2 with manipulated versions of characters that they're associated with. At WME, head of digital strategy Chris Jacquemin sent a memo to agents this week saying that, in its conversations with OpenAI, the agency had alerted the tech giant that it was opting out all of its clients from the latest update of the video tool. That memo, sent Oct. 1, was sent a day after the Sept. 30 unveiling of Sora 2, which launched as a TikTok-style app encouraging sharing with friends. By Friday, Altman had presumably heard concerns from Hollywood IP rightsholders and issued a backtrack of his own on OpenAI's blog. "First, we will give rightsholders more granular control over generation of characters, similar to the opt-in model for likeness but with additional controls," the OpenAI chief wrote on Oct. 3. (What "granular" means appears to be the operative word here.) Altman and OpenAI appear to be pitching "interactive fan fiction" as lucrative emerging space for the studios, which "think this new kind of engagement will accrue a lot of value to them, but want the ability to specify how their characters can be used (including not at all)," Altman wrote, in hyping up the potential revenue stream for Hollywood. In his walk back note, the exec struck a conciliatory approach: "we want to apply the same standard towards everyone, and let rightsholders decide how to proceed (our aim of course is to make it so compelling that many people want to)." Whether that will result in a new round of talks with stakeholders -- studios, agencies, guilds, estates and more -- or spur a round of lawsuits like the legal salvos lobbed by Disney, Universal and Warner Bros. against OpenAI rival Midjourney over its IP-infringing outputs may be the next question. The full Oct. 1 memo from WME's digital chief Chris Jacquemin to agents is below: Subject: OpenAI // Sora update As mentioned in our Rollout meeting, OpenAI has now released a new version of its Sora video generator, which allows users to create videos featuring copyright material unless copyright holders actively opt out. This means studios and other IP holders will need to explicitly ask OpenAI not to include their material in the videos Sora creates. For talent, music artists, athletes, models, etc, they have moved to an opt-in position, though our clients would still have some potential exposure due to the fact that some IP rightsholders have not opted out. There is a strong need for real protections for artists and creatives as they encounter AI models using their intellectual property, as well as their name, image and likeness. Our position is that artists should have a choice in how they show up in the world and how their likeness is used and we have notified OpenAI that all WME clients be opted out of the latest Sora AI update, regardless of whether IP rights holders have opted out IP our clients are associated with. In addition, as you all know, WME has partnerships with both Loti and Vermillio, two companies at the forefront of providing clients with solutions to protect their identity by detecting infringements and issuing takedowns. We have negotiated a no-cost service for Loti and Vermillio available to all of our clients. For any clients not currently working with these services, we encourage you to raise this benefit so we can opt them in. These issues will continue to arise, and we are not just looking at Sora and OpenAI, but across the tech landscape. It's vital that we stay proactive and we plan to continue to fight for our clients' rights and protections. For any legal questions or concerns, please reach out to your respective BA lead or legal. For other questions or if you are interested in onboarding your clients onto Loti or Vermillio, please reach out to Chelsea Allen or Kate Lonczak. Chris Jacquemin | WME

'Pokémon Don't Sue Me': Sora 2 App Opens Floodgates to AI Videos of Pikachu, Mario and More - IGN

OpenAI's Sora 2 generative video app has gone live, and immediately it's been used to create countless videos featuring licensed characters, such as Mario, Pikachu and an array of other Pokémon. While videos featuring Pikachu in Saving Private Ryan, or Mario in Star Wars, might look surprising, a statement from OpenAI earlier this week suggested the company knew exactly what people would be getting up to when Sora 2 arrived -- and what the company's own algorithms had apparently been trained on. According to a Wall Street Journal report, OpenAI has already begun contacting movie studios and other intellectual property owners to discuss next steps -- and offer them the chance to retroactively opt out of their fictional characters being available within Sora 2's AI videos. But, for now, it's open season on Pikachu and his pals, as these initial results from Sora 2 demonstrate (thanks, Nintendo Life): Ever wondered what Pikachu would sound like if he could actually chat away in human speech (and wasn't secretly Ryan Reynolds)? Well, wonder no longer -- though you may regret listening to this. While characters are fair game, OpenAI has previously said that real-life people, whether that's users of the app or the those seeking to use the likeness of celebrities, will need to have manually opted in to having their appearances generated. Of course, OpenAI boss Sam Altman has allowed for his likeness to be used -- so here he is having a lightsaber battle with Pikachu: Alongside Pokémon, Nintendo's own Mario characters have been getting plenty of use. And then there's the final clip below, which mashes together Valve's Portal and Activision's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (and also Twin Peaks). Is any of this legal? "In short, we don't have a definitive answer yet," business lawyer and creator of the Virtual Legality podcast Richard Hoeg told IGN today. "There are indications in some quarters that training on protected materials is likely going to be deemed legal so long as the materials themselves were acquired for some lawful purpose (and not pirated). But on the output side, the Disney/Dreamworks lawsuit makes some good arguments for why/how the law should expect these platforms to police prompts for infringing requests, especially if they are already policing for something else (porn, bigotry, etc.). But all of those are still just arguments, not settled law.. Hoeg continued: "The law moves slowly, far slower than technology, which is why you see these tech companies racing ahead of it a bit. My best guess is that OpenAI is probably going to be okay long term on the training sets they used (assuming they weren't pirated), and that the 'opt out of training' option therefore won't do much of anything. Where they really need to concern themselves is on the output side and/or if they are marketing their software's abilities with protected content themselves." IGN has contacted Nintendo and The Pokémon Company for comment. Last week, the famously litigious The Pokémon Company formally responded to the use of Pokémon TV hero Ash Ketchum and the series' theme tune by the Department of Homeland Security, as part of a video showing people being arrested and handcuffed by law enforcement agents. "Our company was not involved in the creation or distribution of this content," a spokesperson told IGN, "and permission was not granted for the use of our intellectual property." But while The Pokémon Company may not begin legal action over that usage, the firm is still keenly battling on against Palworld developer Pocketpair in its claim that the game infringed upon multiple patents. Earlier this week, former Capcom designer Yoshiki Okamoto sparked a backlash in Japan after suggesting that Pokémon and Nintendo's legal action against Palworld was justified, since Pocketpair's game had "crossed a line that should not be crossed."