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Celebrities including Ron Howard, Cate Blanchett, Cynthia Erivo and Paul McCartney submitted a letter to a White House office stating “America’s global AI leadership must not come at the expense of our essential creative industries.”
By Katie Kilkenny
Labor & Media Reporter
Major Hollywood figures are pushing back against OpenAI and Google‘s appeals to the U.S. government to allow their AI models to train on copyrighted works.
Film, television and music figures including Ron Howard, Cate Blanchett, Cynthia Erivo, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Taika Waititi and Ava Duvernay have signed on to a letter expressing alarm at the tech giants’ suggestions in recent submissions to a White House office that they should be able to access publicly available intellectual property.
“We firmly believe that America’s global AI leadership must not come at the expense of our essential creative industries,” the letter states, adding that the arts and entertainment industry provides more than 2.3 million jobs and bolsters America’s democratic values abroad. “But AI companies are asking to undermine this economic and cultural strength by weakening copyright protections for the films, television series, artworks, writing, music, and voices used to train AI models at the core of multi-billion dollar corporate valuations.”
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On March 13, OpenAI and Google submitted letters to the White House Office of Science and Technology, which has been soliciting input as it develops an AI Action Plan. OpenAI’s submission argued that the U.S. could lose its competitive advantage in the race to become the world’s AI leader with the People’s Republic of China if it strictly adheres to intellectual property frameworks. The company called for the U.S. government to “secure Americans’ freedom to learn from AI, and avoid forfeiting our AI lead to the PRC by preserving American AI models’ ability to learn from copyrighted material.”
In its letter Google framed copyright as one legal area that could “impede appropriate access to data necessary for training leading models.” The company called for “balanced copyright rules, such as fair use and text-and-data mining exceptions, [which] have been critical to enabling AI systems to learn from prior knowledge and publicly available data, unlocking scientific and social advances.” Those exceptions permit “the use of copyrighted, publicly available material for AI training without significantly impacting rightsholders and avoid often highly unpredictable, imbalanced, and lengthy negotiations with data holders during model development or scientific experimentation.”
In a statement, a Google spokesperson added, “We support America’s existing fair use framework, and we’re confident that current copyright law enables AI innovation.”
Two days later, entertainment figures made their opposition to these arguments known in their own letter to the White House tech office. They said the two companies were essentially “arguing for a special government exemption so they can freely exploit America’s creative and knowledge industries, despite their substantial revenues and available funds.” The group called for AI companies to negotiate “appropriate licenses” with copyright holders, adding, “Access to America’s creative catalog of films, writing, video content and music is not a matter of national security.”
Additional signatories of the letter include filmmakers Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron, Phil Lord, Chris Miller, Rian Johnson, Sam Mendes, Matthew Heineman, Benny Safdie, Ben Stiller, Michaela Coel, Lena Waithe, Judd Apatow and Maggie Gyllenhaal and performers Bette Midler, Ayo Edebiri, Sam Rockwell, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Rock, Tessa Thompson, Fred Armisen and Patton Oswalt, among others.
More than 400 industry figures signed on to the letter by March 15, but additional creatives have joined since, including Dan Levy, Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith, Fisher Stevens, Nicholas Braun and Maude Apatow.
On Sept. 18, Lionsgate announced that it had signed a licensing deal with Runway, allowing the AI research company to train on its works. “We believe that AI, harnessed within the appropriate guardrails, can be a valuable tool to serve our talent. And we believe that over the long term, it will have a positive transformational impact on our business,” CEO Jon Feltheimer said not long after. No major Hollywood firms have publicized any such deals since.
Read the full letter below.
We, the members of America’s entertainment industry — representing an intersection of cinematographers, directors, producers, actors, writers, studios, production companies, musicians, composers, costume, sound & production designers, editors, gaffers, union and Academy Members, and other industrious, creative content professionals – submit this unified statement in response to the Administration’s request for input on the AI Action Plan.
We firmly believe that America’s global AI leadership must not come at the expense of our essential creative industries. America’s arts and entertainment industry supports over 2.3M American jobs with over $229Bn in wages annually, while providing the foundation for American democratic influence and soft power abroad. But AI companies are asking to undermine this economic and cultural strength by weakening copyright protections for the films, television series, artworks, writing, music, and voices used to train AI models at the core of multi-billion dollar corporate valuations.
Make no mistake: this issue goes well beyond the entertainment industry, as the right to train AI on all copyright-protected content impacts all of America’s knowledge industries. When tech and AI companies demand unfettered access to all data and information, they’re not just threatening movies, books, and music, but the work of all writers, publishers, photographers, scientists, architects, engineers, designers, doctors, software developers, and all other professionals who work with computers and generate intellectual property. These professions are the core of how we discover, learn, and share knowledge as a society and as a nation. This issue is not just about AI leadership or about economics and individual rights, but about America’s continued leadership in creating and owning valuable intellectual property in every field.
It is clear that Google (valued at $2Tn) and OpenAI (valued at over $157Bn) are arguing for a special government exemption so they can freely exploit America’s creative and knowledge industries, despite their substantial revenues and available funds. There is no reason to weaken or eliminate the copyright protections that have helped America flourish. Not when AI companies can use our copyrighted material by simply doing what the law requires: negotiating appropriate licenses with copyright holders — just as every other industry does. Access to America’s creative catalog of films, writing, video content, and music is not a matter of national security. They do not require a government-mandated exemption from existing U.S. copyright law.
America didn’t become a global cultural powerhouse by accident. Our success stems directly from our fundamental respect for IP and copyright that rewards creative risk-taking by talented and hardworking Americans from every state and territory. For nearly 250 years, U.S. copyright law has balanced creator’s rights with the needs of the public, creating the world’s most vibrant creative economy. We recommend that the American AI Action Plan uphold existing copyright frameworks to maintain the strength of America’s creative and knowledge industries, as well as American cultural influence abroad.
March 18, 2:34 pm PST Updated with a Google spokesperson’s statement as well as additional context on OpenAI and Google’s stance on copyrighted material.
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