OpenAI Sora: Dead People Videos Spark Legal Concerns
Here’s a breakdown of the key legal and ethical points raised in the provided text regarding OpenAI’s Sora and the use of likenesses, particularly those of deceased individuals:
1. Legal Protections for the Living:
* Libel Law: Living people are legally protected from damaging false statements about their reputation.
* Right of Publicity: Most states have laws preventing the unauthorized use of a person’s voice, persona, or likeness for commercial or misleading purposes. This means living individuals must consent to their image being used.
2. The Legal Status of the Deceased:
* No Libel Protection: The deceased are not protected by libel laws. You can’t defame someone who is no longer alive.
* Postmortem Right of Publicity: Three states (New York, California, and Tennessee) do grant a limited right of publicity to the estates of deceased individuals, allowing them to control the commercial use of the deceased’s likeness.
* Gray Area: The request of these laws to AI-generated content is largely untested and a “grey area” legally.
3. OpenAI’s Risks & Defenses:
* Lawsuit Potential: OpenAI could be sued if it’s seen as encouraging users to depict the dead,especially if Sora was trained on extensive footage of ancient figures. The fact that Sora’s homepage features such videos is noted as perhaps problematic.
* Entertainment Defense: OpenAI can argue that Sora is purely for entertainment. the watermark on videos is presented as a way to prevent misleading people or commercial use.
* User Responsibility: OpenAI could argue they are not liable for what users create, but rather for the capabilities of the tool itself.
4. The Issue of Monetization:
* “AI Influencers” & Profit: If users build an audience specifically by generating popular clips of historical figures and then monetize that audience (even indirectly thru platforms like YouTube), they could face lawsuits from estates. This is referred to as “economic AI slop.”
* Indirect Monetization: Earning money through platforms that monetize content (ads,subscriptions) is considered a form of profit.
5. OpenAI’s Response:
* Blocking Requests: OpenAI is now allowing representatives of “recently deceased” public figures to request that their likeness be blocked from Sora videos. This is described as a “toe in the water” approach.
In essence, the article highlights a new legal frontier. AI tools like Sora are pushing the boundaries of what’s legally permissible regarding the use of someone’s image, and the law is struggling to keep up. The key question is whether the use of a deceased person’s likeness in AI-generated content constitutes ”commercial” use, even if it’s not directly monetized by openai itself.