The Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA), an anti-piracy organization that represents Japanese intellectual property owners such as Studio Ghibli and Bandai Namco, published a letter last week asked OpenAI to stop using its members’ content to train Sora 2, it was reported Automaton. The letter states that “CODA considers that the act of replication during the machine learning process may constitute copyright infringement,” as the resulting AI model spit out content with copyrighted characters.
Sora 2 generated a flood of content containing Japanese IP after its release on September 30, prompting Japan’s government to formally ask OpenAI to stop replicating Japanese artwork. This is also not the first time that one of OpenAI’s applications has been clearly lifted from the Japanese media: the highlight of the GPT-4o launch in March was a proliferation of “Ghibli style” images. Even Sam Altman’s own profile photo in X is currently a portrait in a style reminiscent of Studio Ghibli.
Altman announced last month that OpenAI will change Sora’s opt-out policy for intellectual property owners, but CODA claims that the use of an opt-out policy may have violated Japanese copyright law to begin with, stating that “under Japan’s copyright system, prior permission is generally required for the use of copyrighted works, and there is no system to avoid liability for infringement through subsequent objections.”
CODA is now requesting on behalf of its members that OpenAI “sincerely respond” to its members’ copyright claims and stop using their content for machine learning without their permission, which appears to include not only the production of Sora, but also the use of Japanese IP as training data.
