It includes a long list of musicians, content creators and actors who have signed on to a new campaign protesting the use of copyrighted material by tech giants in their AI models.
The list of signatories includes actors such as Scarlett Johansson and Cate Blanchett, musical groups such as REM, and writers such as Brad Meltzer.
The “Stealing Is Not Innovation” campaign, led by the Human Artistry Campaign, says it “respects and protects” creative communities and says “big tech companies, many backed by private equity and other funders, are using the work of American creators to build AI platforms in defiance of licensing and copyright laws.”
The Human Artistry Campaign includes dozens of organizations, including the Recording Industry Association of America, SAG-AFTRA, the Recording Academy, and the Directors Guild of America. Not on the list is the Film Institute.
The campaign claims that by using copyrighted works to train their models, AI companies are committing a “massive rip-off” that jeopardizes “American jobs, economic growth, and the global ‘soft power’ fueled by America’s creative industries.”
“This theft erodes the very foundation of America’s world-leading entertainment industry and destroys the incentive to create new content,” the group said. “If AI developers are allowed to continue stealing original works without permission and producing AI-made copies that directly compete with the originals, American creators are being alienated and will soon not be able to afford to continue producing original works.”
The campaign calls for AI companies to license their content, and some companies have done so. The Walt Disney Company recently signed a deal with OpenAI for the use of some of its characters. But the company has also sued Google over unauthorized use of copyrighted works.
The group’s senior adviser Moya McTeer said in a statement that the “Stealing is not innovation” banner will appear on social media as well as full-page ads.
“‘Static’ represents our future if AI developers continue to allow this kind of behavior, which is bland and lacks human creativity,” she said.
AI companies argue that the use of copyrighted material in training models is fair use. This question is at the center of a series of lawsuits, including those filed by Warner Bros., Disney and NBCUniversal against Midjourney.
