Hollywood Confronts AI Copyright Chaos in Washington, Courts

Tech firms say using copyrighted materials to train AI models is key to US' success; creatives want work protected

- Amrith Ramkumar & Jessica Toonkel

Natasha Lyonne stayed up all night furiously texting and calling Cate Blanchett, Ron Howard, and everyone else she knows in Hollywood, asking them to sign her letter to the Trump administration.

The White House is about to issue its artificial-intelligence action plan, a document that could influence how U.S. copyright rules are applied to training large language models. Tech companies say they need the material to train their models and keep up with China in an AI race with grave national-security implications.

Lyonne and the Hollywood set see it differently: Unfettered AI access to films, TV shows, and acting performances would destroy their value. "At one point my phone started smoking," the actress and director said in an interview about that March night. She gathered more than 400 signatures for her letter.

"My primary interest is that people get paid for their life's work," said Lyonne. She is a partner in a new film and TV studio called Asteria that uses generative AI that trains only on models underpinned by data and images used with permission, practices she wants to be the norm.

America's creators are mounting a campaign to push back on any use of their work without permission or compensation, seeking to head off potential abuses of their intellectual property.

Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger, along with legal chief Horacio Gutierrez, met with White House officials recently to discuss worries about AI models infringing on the company's intellectual property and using the studio's characters in inappropriate ways, according to people familiar with the talks.