CAA, a top talent agency in the entertainment industry, put OpenAI and its video app Sora 2 on blast amid ongoing copyright concerns.
“CAA is unwavering in our commitment to protect our clients and the integrity of their creations,” the company noted in a statement on Wednesday. “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 OpenAI/Sora exposes our clients and their intellectual property to significant risk.”
As the statement went on, CAA co-signed the growing concern that OpenAI’s video service has taken advantage of creators’ intellectual property — with no intention to stop.
“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?” the agency continued. “Or does OpenAI 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.”
Per CAA, “anything less than the protection of creators and their rights is unacceptable.”
However, the talent agency did note that they were open to hearing OpenAI’s solutions to “these critical issues.”
The statement concluded: “[We] 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.”
CAA’s statement comes on the heels of a similar admonishment from the Motion Picture Association, who called on OpenAI to take “immediate and decisive action” over copyright infringements on their app.
Charles Rivkin, Chairman and CEO of the MPA, shared on Monday, “While OpenAI clarified it will ‘soon’ offer rightsholders more control over character generation, they must acknowledge it remains their responsibility – not rightsholders’ – to prevent infringement on the Sora 2 service.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed Sora 2 copyright concerns on Friday, where he vowed in a blog post that changes were coming to the app designed to give rightsholders more copyright control.
“First, we will give rightsholders more granular control over generation of characters, similar to the opt-in model for likeness but with additional controls,” he wrote at the time. “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 also noted that OpenAI would begin experimenting in ways to monetize the videos and that they planned to share the revenue with rightsholders.
