Dara Kerr, The Guardian; OpenAI shutters AI video generator Sora in abrupt announcement
Tech firm ‘says goodbye’ to Sora, made publicly available in 2024, just six months after its launch of a stand-alone app
"In an abrupt announcement on Tuesday, OpenAI said it was “saying goodbye” to its AI video generator Sora. The move comes just six months after the company’s splashy launch of a stand-alone app with which people could make and share hyper-realistic AI videos in a scrolling social feed."
CHRIS STOKEL-WALKER, Fast Company ; The Disney-OpenAI tie-up has huge implications for intellectual property
"Walt Disney and OpenAI make for very odd bedfellows: The former is one of the most-recognized brands among children under the age of 18. The near-$200 billion company’s value has been derived from more than a century of aggressive safeguarding of its intellectual property and keeping the magic alive among innocent children.
OpenAI, which celebrated its first decade of existence this week, is best known for upending creativity, the economy, and society with its flagship product, ChatGPT. And in the last two months, it has said it wants to get to a place where its adult users can use its tech to create erotica.
So what the hell should we make of a just-announced deal between the two that will allow ChatGPT and Sora users to create images and videos of more than 200 characters, from Mickey and Minnie Mouse to the Mandalorian, starting from early 2026?"
BRIAN BARRETT, Wired; The Disney-OpenAI Deal Redefines the AI Copyright War
"“I think that AI companies and copyright holders are beginning to understand and become reconciled to the fact that neither side is going to score an absolute victory,” says Matthew Sag, a professor of law and artificial intelligence at Emory University. While many of these cases are still working their way through the courts, so far it seems like model inputs—the training data that these models learn from—are covered by fair use. But this deal is about outputs—what the model returns based on your prompt—where IP owners like Disney have a much stronger case
Coming to an output agreement resolves a host of messy, potentially unsolvable issues. Even if a company tells an AI model not to produce, say, Elsa at a Wendy’s drive-through, the model might know enough about Elsa to do so anyway—or a user might be able to prompt their way into making Elsa without asking for the character by name. It’s a tension that legal scholars call the “Snoopy problem,” but in this case you might as well call it the Disney problem.
“Faced with this increasingly clear reality, it makes sense for consumer-facing AI companies and entertainment giants like Disney to think about licensing arrangements,” says Sag."
Igor Bonifacic, engadget; Disney's deal with OpenAI is about controlling the future of copyright
"The agreement brings together two parties with very different public stances on copyright. Before OpenAI released Sora, the company reportedly notified studios and talent agencies they would need to opt out of having their work appear in the new app. The company later backtracked on this stance. Before that, OpenAI admitted, in a regulatory filing, it would be "impossible to train today's leading AI models without using copyrighted materials."
By contrast, Disney takes copyright law very seriously. In fact, you could argue no other company has done more to shape US copyright law than Disney. For example, there's the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which is more derisively known as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act. The law effectively froze the advancement of the public domain in the United States, with Disney being the greatest beneficiary. It was only last year that the company's copyright for Steamboat Willie expired, 95 years after Walt Disney first created the iconic cartoon."
Brooks Barnes, The New York Times; Disney Agrees to Bring Its Characters to OpenAI’s Sora Videos
"In a watershed moment for Hollywood and generative artificial intelligence, Disney on Thursday announced an agreement to bring its characters to Sora, OpenAI’s short-form video platform. Videos made with Sora will be available to stream on Disney+ as part of the three-year deal...
“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,” Robert A. Iger, the chief executive of Disney, said in a statement.
Disney is the first major Hollywood company to cross this particular Rubicon."
