Disney invests $1B in OpenAI in deal to bring characters like Mickey Mouse to Sora AI video tool

Disney is investing $1 billion in OpenAI and will bring characters such as Mickey Mouse, Cinderella and Luke Skywalker to the AI company's Sora video generation tool, in a licensing deal the two companies announced Thursday.

At the same time, Disney went after Google, demanding the tech company stop exploiting its copyrighted characters to train its AI systems.

The OpenAI agreement makes the Walt Disney Co. the first major content licensing partner for Sora, which uses generative artificial intelligence to create short videos.

Under the three-year licensing deal, fans will be able to use Sora to generate and share videos based on more than 200 Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars characters.

AI video generators like Sora have wowed with their ability to quickly create realistic clips based merely on text prompts. But a flood of such videos on social media, including clips depicting celebrities and deceased public figures, has raised worries about “AI slop” crowding out human-created work alongside concerns about misinformation, deepfakes and copyright.

Disney and OpenAI said they are committed to responsible use of AI that protects the safety of users and the rights of creators.

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“This agreement shows how AI companies and creative leaders can work together responsibly to promote innovation that benefits society, respect the importance of creativity, and help works reach vast new audiences,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said.

Disney CEO Robert Iger said the deal will “extend the reach of our storytelling through generative AI, while respecting and protecting creators and their works.”

As part of the deal, some user-generated Sora videos will be made available on the Disney+ streaming service.

Disney will also become a “major customer” of OpenAI and use its technology to build new products, tools and services. It also will roll out ChatGPT for employees.

Children's advocates, however, criticized the move. Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay, said Disney's decision to partner with OpenAI “is a betrayal of countless children around the world who adore Mickey Mouse, Frozen, and Toy Story. OpenAI claims children are prohibited from using Sora, yet here they are luring young kids to their platform using some of their favorite characters.” Disney, he added, is "aiding and abetting OpenAI’s efforts to addict young children to its unsafe platform and products.”

Also Thursday, Disney sent Google a cease and desist letter, demanding that the tech company stop using Disney content without permission to feed and train its AI models, including its Veo video generator and Imagen and Nano Banana image generators.

It has previously issued similar cease and desist letters to Meta and Character.AI and has filed litigation with NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery against AI image generator Midjourney and AI company Minimax.

“Well, we have been aggressive at protecting our IP, and we have gone after other companies that have not honored our IP, not respected our IP, not valued it. And this is another example of us doing just that," Iger said in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street. "We have been in conversation with Google, basically expressing our concerns about this. And, ultimately, because we didn’t really make any progress, the conversations didn’t bear fruit, we felt we had no choice but to send them a cease-and-desist.”

Disney accused Google of “infringing Disney’s copyrights on a massive scale,” according to a copy of the letter dated Dec. 10 seen by the Associated Press. The letter included examples that it says Google's AI systems easily generated, such as characters from “Star Wars,” “The Simpsons,” “Deadpool” and “The Lion King.”

Google also has been “intentionally amplifying” the problem by making the infringing content available across its many channels including YouTube, Disney said.

Disney said Google hasn't taken any measures to mitigate the problem even though it has been raising the concerns for months. “Google’s mass infringement of Disney’s copyrighted works must stop,” the letter said.

Google did not respond immediately to a request for comment.