AI + Trump Amps Up a New Wave of Fear in Hollywood, Media

Joseph Gordon-Levitt wants to make one thing clear: he isn’t against artificial intelligence.

“Not even a little bit,” the actor told TheWrap. “I’ve been outspoken in the last couple years about some of my concerns, but what originally put it on my radar was incredible excitement and optimism.”

What he is against are companies like OpenAI and Google using copyrighted materials to train their AI models without compensating those who created the material in the first place.

It is an issue that has driven a wedge between Silicon Valley and Hollywood and the media world. And that chasm grew wider last week after OpenAI and Google, using a threat from China as a flare, submitted proposals to the White House to make it easier to train their AI models, ChatGPT and Gemini, on copyrighted materials. Both companies argued this is a matter of national security — with OpenAI saying loosening copyright restrictions would “strengthen America’s lead” over China in the AI arms race.

Specifically, the AI companies are asking that their models be allowed to “learn” from copyright materials under so-called “fair use” doctrine, which allows certain uses of copyrighted material without needing permission from the copyright owner. The law currently makes no provision for AI use.

In its proposal, OpenAI argued that current copyright law protects “the transformative use of existing works” — meaning ChatGPT is creating something new based on copyrighted work, rather than reproducing it.

“The federal government can both secure Americans’ freedom to learn from AI, and avoid forfeiting our AI lead by preserving American AI models’ ability to learn from copyrighted material,” OpenAI added.

The demands have thrust the issue back into the spotlight. For while tech companies argue fair use is a legal doctrine that grants them the ability to train their models based on other people’s work, so far they have been cagey about acknowledging how they use copyrighted work because of potential legal threats and the inevitable murky interpretations of what constitutes fair use.

Hollywood creatives and publishers quickly mobilized to push back,. More than 400 creatives and executives signed an open letter to the Trump Administration on March 15, calling for the White House to reject OpenAI and Google’s proposals for less stringent copyright rules. Signees included Gordon-Levitt, Ben Stiller, Aubrey Plaza, Cate Blanchett, Natasha Lyonne, Chris Rock, Paul McCartney, Judd Apatow and Ava Duvernay.

They proposed that AI companies be required to negotiate “appropriate” licenses with copyright holders – meaning they want to get paid.

For Gordon-Levitt — who first shared his concerns over AI’s use of copyrighted work in The Washington Post in a 2023 op-ed — this is simply a matter of fairness.

“The basic principle I’m talking about is, if a human being creates some value, should a gigantic tech company be allowed to take that value, make money with it, and not pay the human being or ask permission? To me that is very clearly the wrong thing to do,” Gordon-Levitt said.

OpenAI has rapidly grown into one of the biggest tech companies in the world by leaching off of the work of not only artists, but “nearly all” other industries, from medicine to marketing, Gordon-Levitt said. The company led by CEO Sam Altman is set to close a $40 billion fundraising round that would value OpenAI at $300 billion.

“These new products that are getting called artificial intelligence, they are worth exactly $0 and can do exactly nothing without massive troves of data that was produced by human beings,” he added. “And yet they want to sell these products that they build out of our data — not just Hollywood’s data, everyone’s data.”

“Blue Beetle” director Ángel Manuel Soto told TheWrap he signed the letter because he is worried the OpenAI and Google proposals will erode protections for intellectual property owners. Such a move would undermine creativity and devastate the filmmaking business, he said.

“As a creator, I am often working with other people who have IP, or I am creating my own IP — our copyrights are pretty much the only ownership we have left over what we create,” Manuel Soto said. “So when you’re working on collaborating, having all these elements come to fruition when it comes to what benefits us as creatives, copyright tends to be the thing that actually is meant to have our back.”

Like Gordon-Levitt, he stressed he is not against AI or its use in Hollywood; ideally, the major AI companies would work together with entertainment studios to make sure artists are paid when their work is used by AI models.

“Every time a breakthrough in technology happens, it always has creatives at the front-end of it, spearheading the process. so that it is done ethically, and that it is not taking our jobs, but actually making our jobs more efficient,” Manuel Soto said.

Similar concerns apply to other aspects of the media. This week, several outlets owned by Alden Global Capital, the nation’s second-largest newspaper publisher, criticized OpenAI and Google’s proposals, saying they were nothing more than a “license to steal” in an editorial.

“OpenAI and Google — having long trained their ravenous bots on the work of newsrooms like this one — now want to throw out long-established copyright law by arguing, we kid you not, that the only way for the United States to defeat the Chinese Communist Party is for those tech giants to steal the content created with the sweat equity of America’s human journalists,” the editorial said.

Google, in its White House proposal, argued “fair use and text-and-data-mining exceptions” are “critical” to retaining and advancing America’s AI lead over its chief competitor, China.

Many news outlets, including The New York Times, which is suing OpenAI nd its partner Microsoft for what it calls the “unlawful use” of its stories to train ChatGPT, believe that is not kosher. The Writers Guild of America, in late 2024, pushed Hollywood studios to follow a similar path and take “immediate legal action” against AI companies using writers’ work. Other media companies have found a way to work with the tech companies, like The New York Post, which struck a licensing deal with OpenAI last year.

A legal ruling is needed

Complicating matters is the Wild West nature of it all: There are currently no federal copyright laws that exclusively address AI usage.

OpenAI, in its proposal, acknowledged concerns over a carte blanche approach to using copyright material. The company said it is important for the U.S. government to safeguard “the rights and interests of content creators while also protecting America’s AI leadership.” OpenAI did not share specific recommendations on how to strike that balance.

“We support America’s existing fair use framework, and we’re confident that current copyright law enables AI innovation,” a Google rep told TheWrap. Reps for OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.

Richard Tofel, the former president of ProPublica and the current principal of the media consulting firm Gallant Advisory, does not expect any clarity on this issue soon. He told TheWrap the relationship between AI companies and entertainment and media companies will continue operating in a legal gray area for the foreseeable future.

What will change the dynamic? A legal ruling, he said.

“The dispute is ultimately going to have to be resolved by the Supreme Court,” Tofel said. “It revolves around how copyright law applies to a technology that was created long after the copyright law was enacted.”

Tofel noted the Supreme Court has had to weigh in on disruptive technologies before. He pointed to the famous 1984 “Betamax” case, which found Sony — the Betamax manufacturer — was not violating copyright law by allowing owners to record TV shows for private use; the decision helped spur the widespread adoption of video recording machines like the VCR.

The Supreme Court will ultimately have to clarify to what degree AI models can lean on copyrighted work to train their models, Tofel said.

“We’re in a holding pattern that will be marked by some [licensing] agreements, and some litigation,” Tofel said. “And depending on how the Court resolves it, the negotiating power of the two sides will surely be not the same as it was before.”

Getting AI giants to compensate creators

For now, the media and entertainment industries are left searching for answers on how they can get paid when AI models like ChatGPT use their work to generate responses and content.

One option that both Gordon-Levitt and Manuel Soto said they are intrigued by is a Spotify-like framework, where AI companies pay creators whenever their work is factored into an answer or AI-generated content, similar to how streaming services pay musicians whenever their songs are played.

For now, though, Gordon-Levitt said the biggest issue is merely getting the AI giants to acknowledge and compensate creators for making their products useful.

“What they want to say is, ‘Well, actually, all that creativity and ingenuity that everybody contributed to our products — that’s not worth anything. Only our half of the value is worth money. And so all the money should go to us, and none of the money should go to all of the people whose ingenuity and creativity and work and individuality went into the data that made these products,'” he said.

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