Japanese content trade group CODA, which includes award-winning animation house Studio Ghibli, issued a letter to OpenAI, demanding the AI company stop using their animated works to train its Sora 2 AI video generation platform.
What Did CODA's Letter to OpenAI Say About Their Animation Content?
CODA's mission is to "promote the overseas development of Japanese content and take anti-piracy measures", so at the request of its member companies, they submitted a written request to OpenAI last week regarding Sora 2, which launched in September.
"CODA has confirmed that a large portion of content produced by Sora 2 closely resembles Japanese content or images," the group said in the letter, dated October 27 (via Variety), "CODA has determined that this is the result of using Japanese content as machine learning data."
The letter continued, "In cases, as with Sora 2, where specific copyrighted works are reproduced or similarly generated as outputs, CODA considers that the act of replication during the machine learning process may constitute copyright infringement."
The Japanese trade group demanded OpenAI stop using member content for machine learning without their permission and requested that OpenAI "respond sincerely to claims and inquiries from CODA member companies regarding copyright infringement related to Sora 2's outputs."
However, as of writing, representatives for OpenAI have yet to do so.
How Has the OpenAI CEO Been Addressing Sora 2's Usage of Copyrighted Works?
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Additionally, the CODA letter objected to OpenAI's Sora 2 system for copyright holders, in which IP owners must alert OpenAI if they do not want their copyrighted work included in the generative AI model.
Members of CODA (founded in 2002) include Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc.-owned Aniplex Inc., NTT DoCoMo Studio & Live, Kadokawa, Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions Co., Square Enix, Toei Co., Toho Co., TMS Entertainment, Fuji Television Network, and more.
While US-based entertainment companies raised alarms about the opt-out model, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said Sora 2 will give rightsholders "more granular control over generation of characters, similar to the opt-in model for likeness but with additional controls."
Notably, according to CODA, under Japan's copyright system, "prior permission is generally required for the use of copyrighted works, and there is no system allowing one to avoid liability for infringement through subsequent objections."
Hayao Miyazaki, the co-founder of the award-winning Studio Ghibli, has expressed strong disapproval of any AI-generated animation, calling it an "utterly disgusting" thing to do, that it is an "insult to life itself", adding that he would "never wish to incorporate this technology" into his works "at all."
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