The emerging world of text-to-video artificial intelligence has quickly run headfirst into Hollywood’s longstanding intellectual property protections. Following the widespread sharing of high-quality, unauthorized video clips mimicking popular animated series like South Park and Rick and Morty (though to be honest the voices the AI bots use are better than the new ones they have voicing the titular characters now), OpenAI has been forced to adjust its policies, implementing stricter controls over how users can generate copyrighted characters.
The issue escalated rapidly with the release of the newest version of OpenAI’s text-to-video program, Sora. Users found it remarkably easy to create videos that not only looked visually identical to the recognizable styles of shows like South Park, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Pokémon, but which also featured the characters and voices accurately, often tackling bizarre or unauthorized scenarios (including, as noted, A.I.-generated crypto commercials).
Prior to this crackdown, OpenAI’s policy effectively placed the burden of proof on rights holders, requiring copyright owners to actively “opt out” of having their content used or duplicated by the A.I. But the subsequent flood of copyright-flouting videos across social media—often marked only by a small, frequently-removed “Sora” watermark—prompted a change in stance.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed the situation, announcing policy shifts to give rights holders more granular control over their characters.
In a public post, Altman stated: “First, we will give rights holders more granular control over generation of characters, similar to the opt-in model for likeness but with additional controls.”
This new direction moves away from a purely passive opt-out system toward a model that requires rights holders to specify how their characters can be used, or to forbid their use entirely. Altman suggested that many rights holders are “very excited” about the potential for “interactive fan fiction” and new forms of engagement, but still require the ability to govern the use of their intellectual property.
The question remains whether creators of famously IP-sensitive shows, such as Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park, will embrace this new “interactive fan fiction” model or choose to strictly forbid the use of their iconic characters in A.I. tools.
This move marks a significant moment in the developing conversation around generative A.I., forcing creators of these powerful tools to address copyright concerns preemptively rather than waiting for legal challenges.