Hot on the heels of Sora 2’s release, the Motion Picture Association has called on OpenAI to take “immediate and decisive action” in addressing copyright infringements stemming from the new AI video service.
The MPA’s Monday statement points to numerous videos generated by Sora 2 using copyrighted material from films and television shows. Clips of these AI-generated videos quickly spread on social media in the wake of the tool’s Sept. 30 release.
“Since Sora 2’s release, videos that infringe our members’ films, shows and characters have proliferated on OpenAI’s service and across social media,” Charles Rivkin, Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association, noted in a statement. “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 needs to take immediate and decisive action to address this issue. Well-established copyright law safeguards the rights of creators and applies here.”
The MPA statement comes just days after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed Sora 2 copyright concerns on Friday. At the time, Altman said that changes were coming to the app meant to give rightsholders more copyright control.
“We have been learning quickly from how people are using Sora and taking feedback from users, rightsholders and other interested groups,” Altman wrote in a blog post. “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.”
Sora’s initial opt out policy required companies to say themselves that they did not want their copyrighted material featured on the AI application — rather than opting in to allow their IP on the service. Disney was reportedly one such company to opt out.
Altman noted that many more changes would be made to Sora following the initial copyright updates.
“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 continued. “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 said that Sora 2 is currently in a process of “trial and error” as the company makes various changes to figure out what works the best going forward. He noted that they will begin experimenting in monetizing the generated videos, looking at ways to share revenue with rightsholders when their IP is used.
Altman added: “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). 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 closed by saying that the early days of Sora 2 will see “some good decisions and some missteps” as they try to find a workable long-term service.
