Photo Credit: OpenAI
Sam Altman’s OpenAI reverses its opt-out copyright structure for its Sora model, giving rights holders more control and requiring opt-in.
OpenAI has been quick to reverse its stance on requiring rights holders to opt out of having their copyrighted works used to train the company’s Sora 2 model. The Sam Altman-fronted company initially said rights holders would be able to opt out, but would not be required to opt in before their work would be used to potentially generate content.
That’s a stark contrast to Altman’s latest stance, revealed in a blog post on Friday. According to his post, Altman said the new policy will be “similar to the opt-in model for likeness but with additional controls” for rights holders.
“We are hearing from a lot of rights holders who are very excited for this new kind of ‘interactive fan fiction’ and think this new kind of equipment will accrue a lot of value to them, but want the ability to specify how their characters can be used (including not at all),” wrote Altman.
The post also clarified that OpenAI would need to seek new ways to offset the cost of AI video generation and would try sharing some of that revenue with rights holders who want their characters generated by users.
That’s significant, especially since Sora was the top free app in Apple’s App Store over the weekend. The new app enables users to create and share their own videos on a social media feed—but rights holders were concerned since OpenAI initially told studios and talent agencies alike that they would need to opt out in order to avoid having their copyrighted material used in generated videos.
But the company’s rapid reversal of that stance is a promising sign, especially as AI developers like Anthropic continue to battle in court with rights holders over the process of training their AI models.
“People are generating much more than we expected per user, and a lot of videos are being generated for very small audiences,” wrote Altman. “The exact model will take some trial and error to figure out, but we plan to start very soon.”
