As Hollywood writers seek AI lawsuits, OpenAI asks “why can’t we be friends?”

Tech companies like OpenAI are bullish about the potential uses of video generation models like Sora within the realm of entertainment, but some Hollywood professionals are doing what they can to resist that push. As OpenAI hunts for deals with major studios, artists who work alongside those studios are asking for lawsuits to protect their work.

The loudest call for legal action has come from the Writers’ Guild of America, which published a letter that called on studios to challenge the owners of prominent generative AI models. Though a significant number of creators — ranging from authors to YouTubers — have filed copyright infringement suits of their own, WGA members are arguing that the nature of intellectual property compels studios to join in.

“The studios own the copyrights to our material that’s being stolen, so they have grounds for legal action, and that’s why we wrote the letter,” said WGA West President Meredith Stiehm during an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “Frankly, they’ve been negligent. They have not protested the theft of this copyrighted material by the AI companies, and it’s a capitulation on their part to still be on the sidelines.”

The furor coming out of the Writers’ Guild suggests that tensions related to generative AI are still high, even after Hollywood power players recognized screenwriter frustrations as part of the negotiations that ended the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes

. OpenAI, however, is eager to turn over a new leaf. The Microsoft-backed firm is still talking to studios about Sora’s future in the film, TV, and streaming industries, but according to Bloomberg, no deals have come out of those conversations.

One problem holding back OpenAI’s Hollywood ambitions is confusion surrounding the legality of AI-produced work. The U.S. Copyright Office has clarified that works can still be copyrighted so long as a human interprets and reimagines AI-generated material rather than letting it exist on its own. “Where that creativity is expressed through the use of AI systems, it continues to enjoy protection,” said Shira Perlmutter of the U.S. Copyright Office.

In those cases, what counts as creativity? The case of The Brutalist underscores the ambiguity facing Hollywood. The Best Picture contender saw its Oscar chances take a hit when its editor revealed that generative AI had been used to touch up a few scenes. Do the resulting editorial choices count as human creativity, or have The Brutalist‘s rights owners forfeited their claim?

There are still a lot more questions to ask. Even as startups seek deals with up-and-coming AI artists, Hollywood is pondering a simpler conundrum: Can an AI even make art, anyway?