Disney invests $1b in OpenAI, deal licenses characters
Disney is investing $1 billion in OpenAI and will bring characters like Mickey Mouse, Cinderella and Luke Skywalker to the AI company’s Sora video creation tool in a licensing deal the two companies announced.
The OpenAI deal makes Walt Disney Co. the first major content licensing partner for Sora, which uses generative AI to create short videos.
Under the three-year licensing agreement, fans will be able to use Sora to create and share videos based on more than 200 Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars characters.
AI video creators like Sora have won admiration for their ability to quickly create realistic clips based solely on text commands. But the abundance of such videos on social media, including clips depicting celebrities and public figures, has fueled concerns about misinformation, deepfakes and copyright concerns, as well as concerns that the “AI collapse” will eclipse human-made work.
Disney and OpenAI said they are committed to the responsible use of artificial intelligence that protects the safety of users and the rights of creators.
“This agreement demonstrates how AI companies and creative leaders can work responsibly together to foster innovation that benefits society, respect the importance of creativity, and help work reach broad new audiences,” said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Disney CEO Robert Iger said the deal will “expand the scope of our storytelling through generative AI while respecting and protecting creators and their works.”
As part of the deal, some user-generated Sora videos will be available on the Disney+ streaming service.
Disney will also be a “major customer” of OpenAI and will use its technology to develop new products, tools and services. It will also introduce ChatGPT for employees.
But children’s advocates criticized the move.
Josh Golin, Fairplay’s chief executive, said Disney’s decision to partner with OpenAI was “a betrayal to the countless children around the world who love Mickey Mouse, Frozen and Toy Story. OpenAI claims that children are prohibited from using Sora, but here they are luring young children to their platform by using some of their favorite characters.”
He added that Disney “aided and abetted OpenAI’s efforts to addict young children to unsafe platforms and products.”
Also Thursday, Disney sent a cease and desist letter to Google, demanding that the tech company stop using Disney content without permission to feed and train its AI models, including the Veo video creator and the Imagen and Nano Banana image generators.
It previously issued similar cease and desist letters to Meta and Character.AI, and NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. He had filed a lawsuit against Discovery and AI image maker Midjourney and AI company Minimax.
Disney accused Google of “massive infringement of Disney’s copyrights,” according to a copy of the Dec. 10 letter seen by The Associated Press.
The letter included examples that Google said were easily created by AI systems, such as characters from Star Wars, The Simpsons, Deadpool and The Lion King.
Disney said Google “intentionally amplified” the problem by making infringing content available on multiple channels, including YouTube.
Disney said Google had not taken any action to alleviate the problem, even though it had been raising concerns for months.
“Google’s massive infringement of Disney’s copyrighted works must be stopped,” the letter said.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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