Hollywood talent agency CAA says OpenAI’s Sora poses risk to creators’ rights

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By Mrinmay Dey

(Reuters) -Hollywood’s premier talent agency, Creative Artists Agency, said on Thursday OpenAI is exposing artists to “significant risk” through its new AI video-generating tool Sora.

The Los Angeles-based CAA, founded in 1975, represents thousands of actors, directors and music artists and athletes.

“The question is, does OpenAI and its partner companies believe that humans, writers, artists, actors, directors, producers, musicians, and athletes deserve to be compensated and credited for the work they create?” CAA said in a statement sent to Reuters on Thursday.

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment outside regular business hours.

Sora, launched in September as a standalone app initially in the U.S. and Canada, lets users create and share short AI videos that can be spun from copyrighted content and shared to social media-like streams. The app has quickly gained popularity.

ChatGPT creator OpenAI will soon introduce controls allowing the owners of content rights to dictate how their characters are used in Sora, and plans to share revenue with those who permit such use, Chief Executive Sam Altman posted on his blog on Friday.

But at least one major studio, Disney, has opted out of having its material appear in the app, people familiar with the matter have told Reuters.

CAA said control, permission for use, and compensation were “a fundamental right” of creative workers and warned the misuse of new technologies poses “serious and harmful risks” that extended beyond the entertainment and media industries.

The agency said it was open to hearing OpenAI’s solutions to these issues and was working with intellectual property businesses, creative guilds and unions, as well as legislators and policymakers to address the challenges.

(Reporting by Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru; Editing by Ros Russell)