Google on Wednesday removed dozens of AI-generated videos depicting Disney-owned characters after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from the studio.
In its letter, Disney pointed to the YouTube link to the video and demanded that Google remove it immediately. The AI videos include Mickey Mouse, Deadpool, and characters from “Star Wars” and “The Simpsons,” many of which were created using Google's AI video tool Veo.
The link was still working on Thursday, but now redirects to a message that says, “Due to a copyright claim by Disney, this video is no longer available.”
Disney launched the broadside shortly before announcing a deal to license 200 characters to OpenAI that will allow Sora users to create short AI clips.
The company is drawing a line in the sand to protect its characters from unauthorized use of AI. In its cease-and-desist letter, Disney also provided a long list of characters it wants removed from YouTube and YouTube Shorts, including characters from “Frozen,” “Moana,” “Toy Story,” “Deadpool,” “Iron Man,” “Lilo & Stitch” and “Winnie the Pooh.”
Google said in a statement Thursday that it will work with Disney on this issue.
“We have had a long-standing and mutually beneficial relationship with Disney and will continue to do so,” the company said. “More generally, we built AI using public data from the open web and added innovative rights management, like Google extensions and YouTube’s Content ID, which gives sites and copyright holders control over their content.”
Disney also demanded that Google put safeguards in place to prevent its AI tools from generating Disney-owned characters. It also called on Google to stop using Disney characters to train its AI models.
