Hollywood Urges Trump To Not Let AI Companies 'Exploit' Copyrighted Works (variety.com)
(Monday March 17, 2025 @11:30PM (BeauHD)
from the cease-and-desist dept.)
- Reference: 0176756397
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/03/18/000234/hollywood-urges-trump-to-not-let-ai-companies-exploit-copyrighted-works
- Source link: https://variety.com/2025/digital/news/hollywood-urges-trump-block-ai-exploit-copyrights-1236339750/
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Variety:
> More than 400 Hollywood creative leaders signed an [1]open letter to the Trump White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, [2]urging the administration to not roll back copyright protections at the behest of AI companies . The filmmakers, writers, actors, musicians and others -- which included Ben Stiller, Mark Ruffalo, Cynthia Erivo, Cate Blanchett, Cord Jefferson, Paul McCartney, Ron Howard and Taika Waititi -- were submitting comments for the Trump administration's U.S. AI Action Plan. The letter specifically was penned in response to recent submissions to the Office of Science and Technology Policy from OpenAI and Google, which asserted that U.S. copyright law allows (or should allow) allow AI companies to train their system on copyrighted works without obtaining permission from (or compensating) rights holders.
>
> "We firmly believe that America's global AI leadership must not come at the expense of our essential creative industries," the letter says in part. The letter claims that "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 multibillion-dollar corporate valuations." [...] The letter says Google and OpenAI "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."
You can read the full statement and list of signatories [3]here .
The letter was issued in response to recent submissions from [4]OpenAI (PDF) and [5]Google (PDF) claiming that U.S. law allows, or should allow, AI companies to train their programs on copyrighted works under the fair use legal doctrine.
[1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O3VxI_R4MmzoL9GeUUK7SJ35XQpFQiNK/view
[2] https://variety.com/2025/digital/news/hollywood-urges-trump-block-ai-exploit-copyrights-1236339750/
[3] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O3VxI_R4MmzoL9GeUUK7SJ35XQpFQiNK/view
[4] https://cdn.openai.com/global-affairs/ostp-rfi/ec680b75-d539-4653-b297-8bcf6e5f7686/openai-response-ostp-nsf-rfi-notice-request-for-information-on-the-development-of-an-artificial-intelligence-ai-action-plan.pdf
[5] https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/publicpolicy.google/en//resources/response_us_ai_action_plan.pdf
> More than 400 Hollywood creative leaders signed an [1]open letter to the Trump White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, [2]urging the administration to not roll back copyright protections at the behest of AI companies . The filmmakers, writers, actors, musicians and others -- which included Ben Stiller, Mark Ruffalo, Cynthia Erivo, Cate Blanchett, Cord Jefferson, Paul McCartney, Ron Howard and Taika Waititi -- were submitting comments for the Trump administration's U.S. AI Action Plan. The letter specifically was penned in response to recent submissions to the Office of Science and Technology Policy from OpenAI and Google, which asserted that U.S. copyright law allows (or should allow) allow AI companies to train their system on copyrighted works without obtaining permission from (or compensating) rights holders.
>
> "We firmly believe that America's global AI leadership must not come at the expense of our essential creative industries," the letter says in part. The letter claims that "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 multibillion-dollar corporate valuations." [...] The letter says Google and OpenAI "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."
You can read the full statement and list of signatories [3]here .
The letter was issued in response to recent submissions from [4]OpenAI (PDF) and [5]Google (PDF) claiming that U.S. law allows, or should allow, AI companies to train their programs on copyrighted works under the fair use legal doctrine.
[1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O3VxI_R4MmzoL9GeUUK7SJ35XQpFQiNK/view
[2] https://variety.com/2025/digital/news/hollywood-urges-trump-block-ai-exploit-copyrights-1236339750/
[3] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O3VxI_R4MmzoL9GeUUK7SJ35XQpFQiNK/view
[4] https://cdn.openai.com/global-affairs/ostp-rfi/ec680b75-d539-4653-b297-8bcf6e5f7686/openai-response-ostp-nsf-rfi-notice-request-for-information-on-the-development-of-an-artificial-intelligence-ai-action-plan.pdf
[5] https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/publicpolicy.google/en//resources/response_us_ai_action_plan.pdf
Like Hollywood exploits everyone else? (Score:4, Insightful)
by ihadafivedigituid ( 8391795 )
The unionized crafts and trade people seem to do OK (when there is work, which there isn't at the moment), but Hollywood is notorious for screwing everyone (like actresses, and not figuratively) they can and laughing all the way to the bank. It's a cliché for a reason.
They also want to take but never give back: Disney strip mined the public domain and wants everyone to think Snow White and everything else was their idea.
Begging Hitler for help? (Score:3)
by poity ( 465672 )
These were the people who called Trump a Nazi just a few months ago.
Just ask who has more money (Score:3)
Hollywood or the AI companies. Right now it's the AI companies by an order of magnitude thanks to the insane amounts of capital flowing into them. Remember kiddies AI is capital
And Trump will always side with whoever has more money because they're the ones with the biggest bribes. The only exception is Russia and I'm not entirely certain why. I mean I know the guy laundered money for the Russian mob non-stop for decades but you would think he wouldn't care about that being found out. Maybe the pee tape is real