Photo Credit: OpenAI (A ‘Breaking Bad’ + ‘Spongebob Movie’ mashup created by Sora)
OpenAI is discontinuing Sora, the generative-AI video app it launched last year to significant backlash over its blatant copyright infringement.
After a launch fraught with backlash from copyright holders, OpenAI is discontinuing its generative-AI video creation app Sora. The news comes just a few months after Disney laid the groundwork for a deal with OpenAI that would have given it approved access to over 200 characters from franchises including Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars. Now, Disney has ended its partnership with the company, which included plans for a cool $1 billion investment.
“We’re saying goodbye to Sora. To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built community around it: thank you. What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing,” the company’s Sora team shared in a statement. “We’ll share more soon, including timelines for the app and API and details on preserving your work.”
“As the nascent AI field advances rapidly, we respect OpenAI’s decision to exit the video generation business and to shift its priorities elsewhere,” said a representative for Disney. “We appreciate the constructive collaboration between our teams and what we learned from it, and we will continue to engage with AI platforms to find new ways to meet fans where they are while responsibly embracing new technologies that respect IP and the rights of creators.”
The second version of Sora launched late last year, and while its output was impressive compared to other similar platforms, it sounded the alarm throughout Hollywood. This is particularly due to Sora 2’s “opt-out” model that required IP owners to proactively exclude themselves and their work from the system. Numerous companies spoke out over Sora 2’s ability to generate output based on their IPs without permission.
Notably, other genAI platforms that remain operational include those that Disney has sent cease-and-desist letters to, including Meta and Character.AI, as well as suits filed alongside NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery against Midjourney and Minimax. TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance faced legal threats from Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros., Sony, and Netflix over its Seedance 2.0 system, for which the company vowed to implement additional guardrails.
Disney also sent Google a cease-and-desist for its alleged copyright infringement on a “massive scale” to “commercially exploit and distribute” infringing content. Google has since removed AI-generated videos of IP identified by Disney in its complaint.