Disney invests $1 billion in OpenAI, licenses 200 characters for AI video app Sora

On Thursday, The Walt Disney Company announced a $1 billion investment in OpenAI and a three-year licensing agreement that will allow users of OpenAI’s Sora video generator to create short clips featuring more than 200 Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars characters. It’s the first major content licensing partnership between a Hollywood studio related to the most recent version of OpenAI’s AI video platform, which drew criticism from some parts of the entertainment industry when it launched in late September. “Technological innovation has continually shaped the evolution of entertainment, bringing with it new ways to create and share great stories with the world,” said Disney CEO Robert A. Iger in the announcement. “The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence marks an important moment for our industry, and through this collaboration with OpenAI we will thoughtfully and responsibly extend the reach of our storytelling through generative AI, while respecting and protecting creators and their works.” The deal creates interesting bedfellows between a company that basically defined modern US copyright policy through congressional lobbying back in the 1990s and one that has argued in a submission to the UK House of Lords that useful AI models cannot be created without copyrighted material. Tech companies that build AI models traditionally gather those materials without rightsholder permission due to the sheer number of examples needed to train a reasonably useful generative AI model. However, since breaking out with the mainstream success of ChatGPT and becoming flush with investment cash (and facing some gnarly lawsuits ), OpenAI in particular has taken steps to license content from IP owners after the fact.

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