Report: Hollywood talent agencies were blindsided by OpenAI’s Sora and its hazy opt-out scheme
Just before OpenAI unleashed its Sora app on the world, reports emerged that the company was taking a novel approach to dealing with intellectual property rights: rights holders would have to opt out of the service to prevent their likeness or characters from being featured in objectionable or disturbing ways.
Fast-forward a few weeks, and Sora now sits atop the App Store leaderboards and new details are emerging about how OpenAI engaged with Hollywood talent agencies seeking to protect their clients’ rights. According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, the agency heads felt blindsided by the company’s approach of asking for forgiveness rather than permission.
One talent agency executive said OpenAI was “purposely misleading” in heated discussions about the use of represented clients’ likenesses, per the report. OpenAI executives reportedly told talent agency heads that individual clients would have to individually opt out of the platform, but did not yet have a streamlined process or dedicated staff to process the requests.
Days after Sora’s launch, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote on his blog that the company would “give rightsholders more granular control over generation of characters, similar to the opt-in model for likeness but with additional controls.”
But that hasn’t stopped calls from groups like the Motion Picture Association for OpenAI to respect copyright law and “prevent infringement” of rights owners’ intellectual property.
Fast-forward a few weeks, and Sora now sits atop the App Store leaderboards and new details are emerging about how OpenAI engaged with Hollywood talent agencies seeking to protect their clients’ rights. According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, the agency heads felt blindsided by the company’s approach of asking for forgiveness rather than permission.
One talent agency executive said OpenAI was “purposely misleading” in heated discussions about the use of represented clients’ likenesses, per the report. OpenAI executives reportedly told talent agency heads that individual clients would have to individually opt out of the platform, but did not yet have a streamlined process or dedicated staff to process the requests.
Days after Sora’s launch, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote on his blog that the company would “give rightsholders more granular control over generation of characters, similar to the opt-in model for likeness but with additional controls.”
But that hasn’t stopped calls from groups like the Motion Picture Association for OpenAI to respect copyright law and “prevent infringement” of rights owners’ intellectual property.
