{"id":226922,"date":"2025-10-15T16:37:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T16:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/226922\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T16:37:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T16:37:09","slug":"how-sam-altman-played-hollywood-with-openais-sora-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/226922\/","title":{"rendered":"How Sam Altman Played Hollywood With OpenAI’s Sora 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tNo one knew what was going on. It was late September, just days before OpenAI<\/a> rolled out a new social media app for its video generator, Sora, and whispers were swirling of changes that would undercut Hollywood. A major talent agency, which learned of the upcoming news through the grapevine, wondered why its C-suite hadn\u2019t heard from the Sam Altman-led start-up yet, according to an agency exec involved with the talks. The talent firm reached out.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first round of talks between the two sides was contentious. OpenAI was \u201cpurposely misleading,\u201d says this agency exec who was part of the heated back-and-forth. The tech giant personnel leading the discussions took an upbeat tone, repeatedly talking up an opt-in regime that would protect the agency\u2019s clients against the misuse of their intellectual property and likenesses. <\/p>\n

\n\tHollywood will be happy with the improved guardrails on Sora 2.0, stressed OpenAI\u2019s team, which included COO Brad Lightcap, Sora product lead Rohan Sahai, media partnerships vp Varun Shetty and talent partnerships lead Anna McKean, according to the exec. It turned out that wasn\u2019t the case. \u201cWe started exchanging notes with others having similar conversations and realized we\u2019re all hearing different things,\u201d this person says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong the discrepancies: the treatment of likenesses versus intellectual property. Tellingly, some execs were told an opt-in would be required for both. Others were told the opposite, or weren\u2019t notified of the distinction. OpenAI\u2019s messaging was haphazard to Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\n\tAround that time, WME was told in no uncertain terms that its clients, which include Matthew McConaughey, Michael B. Jordan and Ryan Reynolds, would have to explicitly notify OpenAI not to have their faces and voices appear on the platform, according to a WME partner involved in the discussions. He recoiled at the thought. \u201cI said, \u2018Imagine an agent calling a client right now and advocating for them to get onto Sora,\u2019\u202f\u201d the partner recounts. \u201cIt\u2019s very likely that client would fire their agent. None of us would make that call.\u201d In talks with OpenAI, the partner stressed to the tech firm, \u201cWe have a huge client roster. If they all opt out, what are you doing this for?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Sept. 29, the day before Sora 2 was released, this WME partner was told that likenesses wouldn\u2019t be used without permission. It was a meaningful \u2014 albeit halfway \u2014 win for the agencies when OpenAI unveiled its new social media app, which allows users to create content featuring cash-cow properties owned by studios across Hollywood. Studios must individually flag the properties they don\u2019t want to be used, an aggressive escalation of Silicon Valley\u2019s encroachment onto the entertainment industry.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Oct.\u202f3, Altman announced that the company was pivoting to a kind-of-but-not-really opt-in regime. But by that point, the gambit had worked. At one point, the video generator was returning clips that feature recognizable movies, TV shows and games, including Bob\u2019s Burgers, SpongeBob SquarePants, Gravity Falls, Pok\u00e9mon, Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, among many others. Sora is now the most popular free option on the App Store.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis was a very calculated set of moves he made,\u201d the agency exec says. \u201cThey knew exactly what they were doing when they released this without protections and guardrails.\u201d Talks, now involving legal personnel, are underway. Litigation is being considered.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAs OpenAI races ahead, Hollywood is scrambling to get in front of the situation. The typically tight-lipped Motion Picture Association, the industry\u2019s top lobbying group that mostly has stayed on the sidelines as the AI fight plays out, huddled up and saw it as necessary to publicly rebuke the company. So did CAA and UTA, with WME head of digital strategy Chris Jacquemin circulating a memo<\/a> to agents saying that he had alerted the tech giant that none of its clients were participating in the latest version of Sora.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0Internally at studios and agencies, there\u2019s confusion \u2014 and frustration \u2014 around the opt-out mechanism, according to people familiar with the matter, all of whom noted there\u2019s no formal system for doing so and characterized Altman\u2019s walk back as lip service. Individual properties are flagged and taken down one by one by way of a link that acts more like a mechanism for reporting infractions, a slow and cumbersome process, the agency exec says, noting that OpenAI had no dedicated personnel responsible for guardrails on Sora leading up to its release, though it has a few now. Among some Hollywood execs, there\u2019s a new reluctance to even engage with OpenAI. <\/p>\n

\n\tThey\u2019re of the belief that entering into those talks will now and forever put the onus on them to notify the company that their intellectual property can\u2019t be used. In a sharply worded letter sent to OpenAI in late September, Disney said it \u201cis not required to \u2018opt out\u2019 of inclusion of its works\u201d to \u201cpreserve or pursue its rights under copyright law.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier this year, the studio, along with Universal and Warner Bros. Discovery, launched the first of what\u2019s increasingly likely to be a series of lawsuits over AI firms\u2019 indiscriminate use of its intellectual property when it sued<\/a> Midjourney for allowing users to create content featuring copyrighted characters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey\u2019re turning copyright on its head,\u201d says Rob Rosenberg, partner at legal advisory firm Moses Singer and former Showtime Networks executive\u202fvp. \u201cThey\u2019re setting up this false bargain where they can do this unless you opt out. And if you didn\u2019t, it\u2019s your fault.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t(Left to Right): OpenAI\u2019s COO Brad Lightcap and CEO Sam Altman at the Sun Valley Allen & Co retreat in July.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tFor years, OpenAI\u2019s cavalier approach to intellectual property rights in Hollywood, led in part by tech industry veterans Shetty and McKean, has been consistent: Ask forgiveness, not permission. It\u2019s the path of least resistance to monetize Sora. Use cases for ChatGPT are far and wide, with the company generating roughly $1 billion a month off the back of roughly 700 million weekly active users for its chatbot products, reported<\/a> The Information. <\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s murkier for Sora. AI video generators\u2019 existence depends in large part on their ability to spit out recognizable properties. Consider Midjourney instituting safeguards to prevent the generation of copyrighted material after it was sued but removing them shortly after engagement dropped. Altman is putting a megaphone on his plans to exploit Sora, and it turns out it\u2019ll depend on whether studios are willing to engage in licensing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe are hearing from a lot of rightsholders who are very excited for this new kind of \u2018interactive fan fiction\u2019 and think this new kind of engagement will accrue a lot of value to them,\u201d Altman wrote in a blog post.<\/p>\n

\n\tShetty echoed the sentiment, \u201cWe see new opportunities for creators to deepen their connection with the fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHollywood is fighting a battle of attrition with a well-capitalized AI industry, and it\u2019s losing ground, much like what happened at the dawn of the internet when it was too slow to combat piracy. The biggest piece of leverage it has is the prospect of future deals. OpenAI is entering into those conversations as more of an adversary than an ally.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHow are you coming to the industry expecting partnership?\u201d the WME partner recounts telling OpenAI personnel. \u201cYou quite literally set the bridge on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tInside the agencies, there\u2019s some resentment over studios\u2019 reluctance to challenge Silicon Valley\u2019s steady intrusion onto Hollywood, according to people familiar with the matter. AI companies have been training their technology for years on movies and TV shows scraped across the internet. There\u2019s little recourse for creators, most of whom don\u2019t actually own the intellectual property in their underlying works since they\u2019re mostly commissioned on a work made for hire basis. <\/p>\n

\n\tWhat if the studios had turned to court earlier? Could they have secured a deal that forced AI companies to delete stolen content from their training libraries, much like the settlement authors secured from Amazon-owned Anthropic? Right now, studios are hyperfixated on defending their intellectual property rather than further exploiting it with AI partnerships. It\u2019s a balancing act. Some may have future plans to deploy the technology in ways that could be undercut depending on the legal battles they pick.<\/p>\n

\n\tDisney could decide to forego such AI deals and create a standalone app, much like OpenAI\u2019s Sora, in which users pay a monthly subscription fee to generate interactive content of its properties. Others may have in dealmaking in their sights. It\u2019s here the studios\u2019 interests may not align with the agencies.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTherein lies the big conundrum,\u201d the WME partner says. \u201cIf they sue, they cut themselves off from being able to partner with these companies.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe rival agency exec was less forgiving: \u201cOur clients expect to be protected. There are issues at hand that this is bringing to light.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSora 2 can easily create short, hyperrealistic clips in a variety of styles. <\/p>\n

\n\tThis story appeared in the Oct. 15 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.\u00a0Click here to subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No one knew what was going on. It was late September, just days before OpenAI rolled out a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[65777,1283,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-226922","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-business-features","9":"tag-openai","10":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}