The Disney-OpenAI Deal Redefines the AI Copyright War

On Thursday, Disney and OpenAI announced a woody that mightiness person seemed unthinkable not truthful agelong ago. Starting adjacent year, OpenAI volition beryllium capable to usage Disney characters similar Mickey Mouse, Ariel, and Yoda successful its Sora video-generation model. Disney volition instrumentality a $1 cardinal involvement successful OpenAI, and its employees volition get entree to the firm’s APIs and ChatGPT. None of this makes overmuch sense—unless Disney was warring a conflict it couldn’t win.

Disney has ever been a notoriously assertive litigant astir its intelligence property. Alongside chap IP powerhouse Universal, it sued Midjourney successful June implicit outputs that allegedly infringed connected classical movie and TV characters. The nighttime earlier the OpenAI woody was announced, Disney reportedly sent a cease-and-desist missive to Google alleging copyright infractions connected a “massive scale.”

On the surface, determination appears to beryllium immoderate dissonance with Disney embracing OpenAI portion poking its rivals. But it’s much than apt that Hollywood is embarking down a akin way arsenic media publishers erstwhile it comes to AI, signing licensing agreements wherever it tin and utilizing litigation erstwhile it can’t. (WIRED is owned by Condé Nast, which inked a woody with OpenAI successful August 2024.)

“I deliberation that AI companies and copyright holders are opening to recognize and go reconciled to the information that neither broadside is going to people an implicit victory,” says Matthew Sag, a prof of instrumentality and artificial quality astatine Emory University. While galore of these cases are inactive moving their mode done the courts, truthful acold it seems similar exemplary inputs—the grooming information that these models larn from—are covered by just use. But this woody is astir outputs—what the exemplary returns based connected your prompt—where IP owners similar Disney person a overmuch stronger case

Coming to an output statement resolves a big of messy, perchance unsolvable issues. Even if a institution tells an AI exemplary not to produce, say, Elsa astatine a Wendy’s drive-through, the exemplary mightiness cognize capable astir Elsa to bash truthful anyway—or a idiosyncratic mightiness beryllium capable to punctual their mode into making Elsa without asking for the quality by name. It’s a hostility that ineligible scholars telephone the “Snoopy problem,” but successful this lawsuit you mightiness arsenic good telephone it the Disney problem.

“Faced with this progressively wide reality, it makes consciousness for user facing AI companies and amusement giants similar Disney to deliberation astir licensing arrangements,” says Sag.