Artificial intelligence (“AI”) developments are occurring at breakneck speed, so this article provides a snapshot on developments that affect Hollywood.
AI Video. We already know that AI can write entire screenplays, create music, and create pictures from written commands. The next logical development is here: you can create realistic video content by typing in a written description of what you want. There are numerous sites that do this, which you can easily find by searching “text to video.” It won’t be long before these sites are converting entire screenplays into a feature-length film, replete with music, characters, and dialog. This development is going to have a profound impact on employment in Hollywood. Tyler Perry put it succinctly with “Jobs are going to be lost,” when he stopped an $800 million expansion of his studio in Atlanta. People at the cutting edge have predicted that the cost of producing a film will decrease to 10% of the current cost in five years, and that means a lot of people looking for new jobs and a lot of empty studios.
Copyright. There are an ever-growing number of lawsuits against AI companies claiming copyright infringement based either on input (copying to upload to AI) or output (the resulting output created by AI), or both. To date, the output cases that rely on the theory that “my work must in there somewhere” are losing in the absence of a striking resemblance to the original work, but the courts have held out hope for the input cases as long as the plaintiff owns a registered copyright work that has been uploaded to AI. The outcome of this latter class of cases will depend on the fair use defense, and this will likely have to be resolved by the Supreme Court. To avoid litigation, some AI companies are paying in advance for licenses to libraries of content, and proposals have been made to amend the Copyright Act to require compulsory licenses with mandated payments, similar to what is done for music recordings.
Defamation. Given AI’s tendency to “hallucinate,” it is not surprising that AI has reported nasty untrue facts regarding real people, which has led to defamation claims against AI companies. In January, a court denied a motion to dismiss such a case, so AI may be held liable for such claims. It remains to be seen whether courts will apply Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to AI-generated output as a defense to defamation claims.
Right of Publicity. To date, a patchwork of state laws and conflicting case law has hampered right of publicity claims against AI. However, recent extreme uses, such as AI generated phone calls by President Biden advising people not to vote in the New Hampshire primary and the X-rated videos of Taylor Swift, have given new impetus to pending federal legislation that would protect individuals before this trend gets out of hand.
If You Can’t Beat ‘Em… Many celebrities have chosen to use AI to their advantage, by licensing use of their name, voice, and/or image for use in some manner by AI. For example, Meta (formerly Facebook) has obtained licenses of voice and image rights from numerous celebrities for use by AI, and fans can manipulate the voice and images to their heart’s content, including making it appear that the celebrities are endorsing products that compete with their actual sponsors or doing other naughty things (use your imagination).
Guild Agreements. The treatment of AI under the new guild agreements is briefly summarized below:
DGA. The studios are not permitted to replace any DGA member positions with AI during the three year term of the new agreement.
WGA. Any material written by AI will not be considered “literary material” for purposes of credit and compensation under the WGA Basic Agreement.
SAG. The studios are not permitted to use AI to replicate a SAG member without the member’s clear and conspicuous consent in a separate agreement that includes a description of the intended use and any intended alteration. Before a studio uses AI to create an entirely new likeness, it must negotiate with SAG in good faith for appropriate compensation owed for the use.
Really? And since this article focuses on the entertainment industry, here is a final update purely for its entertainment value: Remarkably, more than a few law firms have recently been sanctioned for filing briefs that were prepared by AI and that are peppered with numerous citations to supporting cases (um… that were entirely fictional due to AI hallucination). Thankfully, AI has its limits…