[21:33 Sun,14.December 2025 by Thomas Richter] |
Disney has closed a 1 billion deal with OpenAI that allows the video AI Sora to use all of Disney&s animated characters. The three-year licensing agreement covers characters from various content universes, such as classic Disney films like Cinderella and Mickey Mouse, new productions like Monsters, Inc., Toy Story, and Frozen, as well as Star Wars and Marvel. ;)
OpenAI still has masses of investor money and is looking for a way to tap into new revenue streams, given the lack of an IPO, major competition, and only incremental AI progress. In addition to attempting to hinder the competition through large-scale memory acquisitions, a major hope seems to rest on the  video AI Sora 2 and the new associated proprietary social network, which allows users to generate videos with popular, copyrighted characters and insert themselves into these scenes via a "Cameo" function (www.slashcam.de/news/single/OpenAI-zeigt-Sora-2--Neuer-KI-Videogenerator-setzt-19571.html). The deal also stipulates that Disney may stream selected clips on Disney+. Disney deadline.com/2025/11/disney-plus-exploring-game-like-features-1236616248/ also intends to use AI in the future to give Disney+ users the ability to create clips with Disney characters—essentially outsourcing creativity—and to consume them. Or, in the words of Disney CEO Bob Iger: "Connecting Disney’s iconic stories and characters with OpenAI’s groundbreaking technology puts imagination and creativity directly into the hands of Disney fans—in ways we’ve never seen before. This allows them to connect with the Disney characters and stories they love in even more immersive and personal ways.” However, only the generation of animated characters is permitted. Thus, characters from the Marvel and Star Wars films such as Black Panther, Captain America, Deadpool, Iron Man, Loki, Thor, Darth Vader, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Leia, Stormtroopers, Yoda, and others can be generated via AI, but only in their "drawn" version. The actors (and the characters they portray) are currently protected from AI copying by an agreement reached by their union SAG-AFTRA with the studios at the end of 2023 and the consent and compensation guidelines decided therein. ;) Famous characters generated with Sora 2 Classic Disney characters that will be available on Sora include Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Lilo, Stitch, Ariel, Cinderella, as well as all characters from the worlds of, among others, Frozen, Monsters, Inc., Toy Story, Zootopia, and more. At the launch of Sora 2, OpenAI showed no regard for copyright protection, allowing users to generate images of themselves together with all sorts of popular characters via the Sora app and post them on Sora&s proprietary social network. This was a clear startup maneuver à la "move fast, break things" to quickly gain attention and thus market share, giving investors hope for future profits—whether through the market power of a proprietary social network or paying power users. Estimates suggest that OpenAI loses around million every day for this hope with Sora (another hope for a future market is based on AI-generated content exclusively for adults—a feature scheduled to launch in spring 2026).
Following this phase of legally unsustainable opt-outs, which allowed OpenAI to publish copyrighted material as long as the rights holders did not explicitly object, the opt-in offer followed for the actual copyright owners of all the characters. It is clear that this is only attractive to the owners if money is involved. OpenAI&s deal with Disney has now set the standard for future deals involving other video AIs and content conglomerates. What is apparently excluded is the exploitation of actors& performances. The press release states that Disney and OpenAI "will respect the rights of individuals to appropriately control the use of their voice and likeness." Disney is the first major studio to license its creative content to OpenAI. Disney will also be an OpenAI customer and use its tools for new content for Disney+. Interestingly, it is not intended that OpenAI may use Disney content for training—which is somewhat peculiar, as the Disney characters can naturally only be generated by Sora if it has also been trained on them—which OpenAI naturally does, but it seems this will continue to happen without explicit permission.  more infos at bei deadline.comdeutsche Version dieser Seite: Von Mickey Mouse bis Darth Vader - Disney lizenziert seine Figuren an OpenAIs Sora |
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