SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin and National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland took OpenAI and its new Sora 2 to task in a memo to union members on Thursday, saying that the Sam Altman-led platform’s “opt-out” copyright model “threatens the economic foundation of our entire industry.”
Their memo also came hot on the heels of mounting fears around AI “actress” Tilly Norwood’s implications on human performers. And as union leadership, they broke down the ways in which SAG-AFTRA is continuing to advocate for clear and swift tech regulation in Hollywood.
“The public release of Sora 2 and its remarkably advanced capabilities excited some observers. For many more of us, this lightning-fast technological evolution brings profound concern,” the memo reads. “OpenAI’s decision to honor copyright only through an ‘opt-out’ model threatens the economic foundation of our entire industry and underscores the stakes in the litigation currently working through the courts. If A.I. companies can shift the burden to rightsholders to opt out, what does copyright really mean? Opt-out isn’t consent — let alone informed consent. That’s why SAG-AFTRA fights for opt-in approaches. No one’s creative work, image, likeness or voice should be used without affirmative, informed consent. Anything less is an unjustifiable violation of our rights.”
The pair gave credit to Sora 2’s “cameo” function, however, which allows users to create digital replicas of themselves and opt into its reuse on the service.
Astin and Crabtree-Ireland additionally lambasted Tilly Norwood, a digital generation being promoted as a buzzy AI actress for talent studios to sign.
“Tilly Norwood is not a person. It’s a synthetic construct generated by software trained on the work of countless professional performers, real human beings, whose work was taken without permission, without credit and without compensation,” they said.
Tilly Norwood debuted as the first AI actress at the Zurich Summit back in September, prompting outcry from several acting unions — including SAG-AFTRA, Canada’s ACTRA union and the U.K.’s Equity, all of which made it clear Norwood wouldn’t be welcomed as a member.
You can read the full memo here.
The union’s admonishment of Sora 2 and Tilly Norwood comes after similar statements were issued by CAA and the Motion Picture Association this week.
On Monday, Charles Rivkin, Chairman and CEO of the MPA, blasted OpenAI’s new video service in an open letter, in which he called on the company to take “immediate and decisive action” in addressing the growing copyright infringements.
“Since Sora 2’s release, videos that infringe our members’ films, shows and characters have proliferated on OpenAI’s service and across social media,” he wrote. “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.”
Rivkin added that “well-established copyright law safeguards the rights of creators and applies here.”
CAA, a leading agency in the entertainment industry, expressed similar sentiment with their own message on Wednesday. In their note, CAA accused OpenAI’s Sora 2 of exposing their “clients and their intellectual property to significant risk.”
They continued: “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 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?”
The pushback to Sora 2 follows the app’s Sept. 30 release and CEO Sam Altman’s subsequent promise to give more “granular control” to rightsholders.
“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,” Altman wrote on Oct. 3, “but want the ability to specify how their characters can be used (including not at all). We assume different people will try very different approaches and will figure out what works for them.”
Additionally, Altman noted OpenAI was exploring ways to monetize the videos and that they planned to share the revenue with rightsholders.
