[Hamuko]

>Now the internet will be flooded by Disney character's videos

How is Disney okay with this anyway? They've sent their lawyers after daycare centers who dared to paint a picture of a Disney character on their walls. Why are they suddenly going to ignore me prompting a video of Winnie the Pooh hitting the bong?

[therealpygon]

Disney, is well aware of the writing on the wall that copyright is going to continue to become increasingly harder to enforce, as generative ai distances itself from brute mimicry, and because infringers can generate new versions faster that takedown notices can be filed. Their alternative is to either be steamrolled, or leverage their IP while it has worth in order to latch on to the AI market. Plus, they give a solid explanation: it is free advertising when there are guardrails on how the characters can behave/say/portray (which is the advantage of the deal — I assume a similar one with Google, Microsoft or Apple will be forthcoming too).

When a true “leader” big or small emerges, every bit of capital will flock to it, leaving a burned out nest of ai company husks. But hey…maybe this time will be completely different. (And upon consideration, I think this is exactly why. All their deals are with the husks, while keeping their IP to leverage with the winner.)

[KaiserPro]

> infringers can generate new versions faster that takedown notices can be filed

This was the case with youtube, and it was touch and go if they were going to be forced to close in the early days.

[smj-edison]

It'll be interesting to see whether OpenAI is able to enforce the guardrails that Disney would want...

[CamperBob2]

They have to consider China. Right now Z-Image Turbo lets you render stills of any popular cartoon character you like, at frankly-disturbing levels of quality, doing almost anything you like. That's a relatively-tiny 6G-parameter model. If and when a WAN 2.2-level video model is released with a comparable lack of censorship, that will be the end of Disney's monopoly on pretty much any character IP.

Also, notice how Disney jumped all over Gemini's case before the ink was dry on the OpenAI partnership agreement. My guess is that Altman is just using Disney to attack his competitors, basically the 'two' part of a one-two punch that began by buying up a large portion of the world's RAM capacity for no valid business reason.

[r0b05]

I think this is a great take.

[noosphr]

Dysneys characters are entering the public domain, they can either cash out now or not at all.

Mickey mouse is now copyright free, pluto is in two weeks, then pretty much the whole roster by 2030 https://michelsonip.com/news/disney-characters-in-the-public...

[duskwuff]

Mickey Mouse's character design as of 1930 is in the public domain. But if you ask an AI image model for "Mickey Mouse", you'll probably get something based on more recent versions of the character which are still copyrighted.

[ajdude]

Mickey Mouse with red shorts and at least yellow gloves is already in the public domain: https://old.reddit.com/r/publicdomain/comments/18w4lnf/since...

The "modern" Mickey Mouse will be at the public domain in about five years.

[noosphr]

Like I said, wait four years and all the main characters most recognised incarnations will be in the public domain.

[bigbinary]

Or we’ll get more articles about how Disney lobbied for even longer and stricter copyright nonsense.

[godelski]

  > Mickey mouse is now copyright free

Not true.

Scroll down on this page[0] and you'll see the different Mickeys and most of them are not under copyright. You got Steamboat Whillie + gloves but no Fantasia Mickey or later. Definitely no red-pants version.

Unsurprisingly Disney knows what they're doing and they have 95 years to modify a character's looks (and how the public imagines that character) before it enters public domain.

  > pluto is in two weeks

Not the Pluto you're thinking of...[1]

[0] https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/mickey/

[1] https://www.disneydining.com/disney-copyright-loss-pluto-202...

[hgomersall]

Or they could make, you know, new stuff people want to watch?

[afavour]

Because they didn't get any money from the daycare and they will get money from OpenAI when you make your Sora video. That's all there is to it.

[Hamuko]

I have a feeling that the long-term economics of this don't really work. OpenAI is burning money and Altman has already gone out in public saying how Sora-generated content is being made in large volumes for little audience.

>People are generating much more than we expected per user, and a lot of videos are being generated for very small audiences.

If OpenAI is going to pay Disney money for Winnie the Pooh smoking crack, I get the feeling that the money is going to come not from Sora profits but from companies that invested in OpenAI. Companies like Disney. Not that Sora is going to generate any profit if I can generate a video for free and I then post it on Discord instead.

[aucisson_masque]

> I have a feeling that the long-term economics of this don't really work. OpenAI is burning money and Altman has already gone out in public saying how Sora-generated content is being made in large volumes for little audience.

Let me introduce you to ponze scheme. He is feeding the hype, that's all that matters right now. More and more cash... The only real winner will be Nvidia when the bubble explode.

[afavour]

Yes, that's what makes Disney investing in OpenAI as part of this so confusing to me. Sign a licensing deal that means OpenAI pays you every time someone uses your character? Absolutely. Who cares if they're burning cash, as long as you get your payday it's all good. But investing in the company means their cash burning is your problem too. I don't know why you'd do it.

[johnnyanmac]

The only explanation is if they think they can juice their stock by 2 billion and then whoever is on the ship jumps before the crash.

Sounds like Iger has his finger on the eject button. How much stock has he announced to be cashing out over 2026?

[sheeshe]

It’s not that.

It’s ego and desperation for one last hurrah. Disney has a history of being a corporate governance nightmare - which Iger ironically contributed toward fixing. He’s undoing all that now.

[johnnyanmac]

>People are generating much more than we expected per user, and a lot of videos are being generated for very small audiences.

That was the issue even the biggest Ai fans pointed out from day one. People aren't gonna post their videos on Sora. They are gonna make it on Sora and post on TikTok. A watermark won't change that reality (and I don't think ClosedAI is worried about brand recognition and taking a hit for that).

Likenthr rest of the scene, it's so utterly tone deaf.

[aerostable_slug]

It's not just that: generative AI tools make it so easy to make content that you run into discoverability problems. The pool of available content becomes huge but without a way to market or otherwise differentiate yourself, no one will likely stumble across it.

We already see this dynamic with the "vanity press" pay-to-play record labels / distributors like DistroKid: the vast majority of their catalog has never been played or was only played to test the initial upload. Huge numbers of tracks have a tiny number of views, with many literally never played. "Democratizing" content creation predictably does this, and it's frankly bizarre it wasn't anticipated.

[johnnyanmac]

The brand rot will be disgusting here. I thought "family" companies like Nintendo and Disney hit so hard, against their best interests, because they didn't want the next pregnant Elsa or Nazi Mario to cause a storm on their carefully tailored brands.

Seems like Nintendo still has that long term thinking. Disney was just waiting for the right price.

[venturecruelty]

I mean, Disney can do basically whatever it wants and nothing will change. If my gay, Muslim friends are still willing to patronize the parks, despite their very real disagreement with how Disney conducts its business, then what hope is there for the exhausted, overworked mom whose child won't stop wailing about watching Frozen? This will absolutely tarnish the brand, and yet people will still consume Disney slop.

[badc0ffee]

> If my gay, Muslim friends are still willing to patronize the parks, despite their very real disagreement with how Disney conducts its business

What is this referring to?

[throwaway17_17]

Disney has a long history of donating large dollars to ultra-conservative legislators and presidential hopefuls (they also donate to liberal candidates as well). As for the Muslim portion, it’s most likely due to Disney donating $2 million to Israeli Non-profits and condemning terrorism while making no statements or donations to the Palestinian people’s or groups that attempt to provide to the Palestinian people Israel was bombing in the closing months of 2023. The BDS movement has and keeps Disney on their list of boycott targets to this day.

[crumpled]

As an aside: Winnie the Pooh is public domain, so he can do drugs if he wants. But he shouldn't wear a red shirt while he does.

[paradox460]

Oh that's not red, it's crimson

[DANmode]

Wait - where is that wrinkle from?

The modern books?

[itomato]

They smell blood in the water and just bought their next gen studios for $1B

[onion2k]

Sora is a heavily censored model so presumably they believe they can stop that sort of content being generated.

[bmacho]

> How is Disney okay with this anyway?

They rather have control over who, when, how can create AI with Disney property, than let people figure it out themselves.

[CamperBob2]

They say that if you were to parachute Sam onto North Sentinel Island and come back in five years to check on him, he'd be their king.

[paradox460]

After having stolen all their eyeballs?

[ohthehugemanate]

In the land of the blind, the man with a I is king!

[doctorpangloss]

They’re not. It will take them so long to negotiate the terms of using important IP that Sora will become obsolete.