Disney's landmark OpenAI deal comes as AI battle rages
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Disney's landmark agreement with OpenAI comes as a slew of new lawsuits and cease and desist letters add pressure on AI firms to strike deals with content companies before they're forced to possibly pay out higher settlements in court.
Why it matters: Content companies have been racking up notable legal wins against AI firms as they present strong cases around fair use.
- Reuters' landmark victory against competitor Ross Intelligence in February set a new precedent around whether AI companies can use real-time intellectual property that they don't own to fuel their products and services, not just to train their large language models.
- Anthropic in September agreed to pay at least $1.5 billion to a group of authors and publishers in the largest copyright settlement in U.S. history.
Driving the news: Disney's new agreement with OpenAI will make it the first major content licensing partner on Sora, OpenAI's social video platform.
- The deal allows Sora users to generate videos and stills from a set of more than 200 animated, masked and creature characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars.
- Disney is also making a $1 billion equity investment in OpenAI.
Zoom out: The deal represents a huge endorsement of AI-created content by Disney, which has amped up its legal threats against AI firms over the past year.
- Disney this week sent a cease-and-desist letter to Google alleging widespread copyright infringement for the use of its characters and IP across Google's AI products.
What to watch: The news industry has been getting more aggressive over the past week in its legal fights against — and dealmaking with — AI firms.
- The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune both sued Perplexity, accusing the generative AI search company of copyright infringement by copying its journalism without permission or compensation.
- Meta struck several commercial AI data agreements with news publishers, including conservative outlets Fox News, the Daily Caller, and Washington Examiner.
- Google is piloting a new commercial partnership program with a range of global news publishers, including Der Spiegel, El País, The Guardian, The Times of India, The Washington Examiner and The Washington Post.
