OpenAI's Sora App Surges to 1 Million Downloads Amidst Copyright and Ethical Concerns
OpenAI's Sora app hits one million downloads rapidly, prompting ethical and copyright dilemmas over AI-generated videos of deceased celebrities and intellectual property rights.
- • Sora achieved over 1 million downloads within five days, surpassing ChatGPT's launch speed.
- • The app enables realistic text-to-video content but faces backlash over videos featuring deceased public figures.
- • OpenAI permits authorized requests to restrict use of likenesses of recently deceased individuals.
- • Hollywood groups criticize OpenAI's copyright policies, citing exploitation concerns.
- • OpenAI plans to give rights holders more control and explore revenue sharing for generated content.
Key details
OpenAI's video-generation app Sora has quickly amassed over one million downloads within its first five days on the Apple App Store, outpacing even the rapid adoption of ChatGPT. Designed as a text-to-video AI tool, Sora enables users to create realistic, ten-second videos from text prompts, mimicking the short-form engagement of platforms like TikTok. Despite initially being invite-only and limited to iOS users in North America, the app swiftly rose to the top of the US Apple App Store charts, signaling strong user demand.
However, Sora's swift ascent has been shadowed by considerable ethical and legal backlash. Critics have raised alarms over the app's use of images and likenesses of deceased celebrities, including viral AI-generated videos of Michael Jackson and Tupac Shakur. Zelda Williams, daughter of Robin Williams, publicly condemned AI videos featuring her late father, underscoring the ethical dilemmas posed by such digital recreations. In response, OpenAI has stated it permits authorized individuals to request the blocking of likenesses of recently deceased persons, though the specifics of the term "recently" remain unclear.
Hollywood and music industry groups, including the Motion Picture Association, have criticized OpenAI's copyright policies, describing them as exploitative. Sora 2, the app's latest iteration, has encountered prompt failures due to copyright infringement blocks, illustrating the ongoing challenge of balancing content generation with intellectual property rights.
OpenAI is reportedly updating its approach to address these concerns, considering giving rights holders more control over the generation of characters and exploring revenue-sharing models. This adaptation comes in the context of broader industry scrutiny, following a $1.5 billion settlement by Anthropic over similar AI training data lawsuits. Meanwhile, viral user content such as deepfakes of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman interacting with Pokémon characters has further complicated legal interpretations around copyright and fan fiction classifications.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has emphasized that while profitability is not the immediate priority, the company foresees significant revenue potential in AI services. Yet, sustaining Sora's business model poses challenges due to the high computational costs associated with generating video content compared to traditional social media.
As Sora continues to gain popularity, it stands at a crossroads of innovation and controversy, prompting vital conversations about the ethical use of AI in media, legal compliance, and the future economics of generative AI platforms.