Walt Disney and OpenAI announced a three-year licensing agreement Thursday that will allow users to create short videos featuring popular Disney characters through artificial intelligence.
The deal marks the first time a major entertainment company has embraced generative AI at this scale, licensing AI content creation to highly protected characters ranging from Mickey Mouse to Marvel superheroes to Star Wars' Darth Vader.
The partnership marks a dramatic shift for an industry that has largely fought AI companies in court.
Disney and other creative industry giants are suing AI companies including OpenAI, Perplexity, and Anthropic for illegally using their content for technology training.
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The entertainment giant continued its legal action on Wednesday, sending a separate cease-and-desist letter to Google over the search engine giant's illegal use of intellectual property to train its AI models.
For OpenAI, the deal comes amid growing questions about the sustainability of its business model, with costs soaring far faster than revenues even as the number of global users approaches 1 billion.
Under the agreement, fans will be able to create and share AI-generated content featuring more than 200 characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars franchises on OpenAI's Sora video generation platform and ChatGPT.
Launched at the end of September, Sora aims to be a social network similar to TikTok, where only AI-generated videos can be posted.
From the beginning, many videos, from South Park to Pokemon, included characters directly inspired by actual comics and video games.
In the face of license holders' anger, CEO Sam Altman promised that OpenAI would provide rights holders with more controls to stop these AI copies.
The partnership includes a $1 billion equity investment by Disneyin OpenAI and the right to purchase additional shares in the ChatGPT maker.
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Disney stock rose more than 2% on Thursday following the announcement.
Disney CEO Robert Iger said the collaboration “expands the scope of our storytelling in a thoughtful and responsible way.”
Characters available for fan creations include Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Elsa from Frozen, Marvel heroes such as Iron Man and Captain America, and Star Wars icons such as Darth Vader and Yoda.
The agreement excludes talent likenesses and actors' voices, amid deep concerns in Hollywood about the impact of AI.
“This is in no way a threat to creators, quite the opposite,” Iger told CNBC. “I think it respects and respects creators, especially since there are licensing fees involved.”
SAG-AFTRA, Hollywood's leading actors union, said it would “closely monitor” the agreement's implementation, while the Writers Guild of America said it would meet with Disney to examine the terms and stressed that OpenAI had stolen a “vast library” of studio content to train its technology.
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30 seconds
In a joint interview with CNBC's Altman, Iger insisted that the deal only included videos of 30 seconds or less and that the technology would not be used for feature-length productions.
Beyond licensing, Disney will deploy OpenAI's technology to build new products and experiences for its streaming platform, Disney+.
“Disney is the global gold standard for storytelling,” Altman said. “This agreement demonstrates how AI companies and creative leaders can responsibly collaborate.”
Both companies emphasized their commitment to responsible AI use, with OpenAI pledging timely policies and controls to prevent the generation of illegal or harmful content.
In Disney's complaint against Google, OpenAI's biggest rival in the AI space, the entertainment giant accuses Google of massively infringing Disney's copyrights by copying vast amounts of content without permission to train and develop AI models and services.
“We are aggressive about protecting our intellectual property and going after other companies that don't value it, and this is another example of us doing just that,” Iger told CNBC.
(France 24 News Agency AFP)
