On December 11, Walt Disney completed two opposing AI copyright battles on the same day: in the morning, it issued a stern cease-and-desist letter to Google, accusing it of "massive copyright infringement"; hours later, it announced a $1 billion investment in OpenAI, authorizing the latter to use over 200 Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and "Star Wars" characters on the Sora platform to generate short videos.
The cease-and-desist letter was submitted by Disney's legal department on Wednesday, accusing Google's Veo, Imagen, and Nano Banana models of "systematically" copying and commercializing Disney's protected works during training and output phases. The letter included IP titles such as "Frozen," "The Lion King," "Moana," "The Little Mermaid," and "Deadpool." It stated that Google "acts like a virtual vending machine, mass reproducing, rendering, and distributing Disney's valuable copyrighted characters," and that some generated content bears Gemini watermarks, which could mislead the public into thinking Disney has authorized it.
Disney said it has been communicating with Google for months on this issue but has not received substantial responses, so it asked Google to immediately stop copying, displaying, and deriving its copyrighted characters, and to disclose the specific works used for training. Google responded only by stating, "We maintain a long-term mutually beneficial relationship with Disney and will continue to communicate," while emphasizing that it has copyright control mechanisms such as Google-Extended and Content ID.
At almost the same time as the letter was made public, Disney revealed a three-year strategic partnership with OpenAI: granting Sora access to more than 200 animated characters, props, and scenes, allowing users to generate and share short videos on Disney+; the agreement explicitly excludes rights to real-life portraits and voices. CEO Robert Iger stated that the move aims to "responsibly expand narrative boundaries," and OpenAI also promised to establish content filtering and audit mechanisms to prevent unauthorized derivatives.
Industry insiders point out that Disney's strategy of "fighting while negotiating" highlights the dilemma faced by Hollywood in the era of generative AI: on one hand, it needs to prevent model developers from using copyrighted materials for free, but on the other hand, it also needs to leverage AI tools to revitalize old IPs and reduce content production costs. As courts have yet to make a final ruling on whether "training constitutes fair use," authorization negotiations and litigation by major content holders are likely to become the norm in the next two years.
