The Human Consent Foundationthe Cate Blanchett-backed nonprofit trying to protect the likenesses of individuals from unauthorized scraping by AI models, and a legion of Hollywood companies have filed an amicus brief in the New York Times‘ lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming the tech companies’ position that it could not reasonably clear the rights for content “mischaracterizations” in light of an active licensing market.
The group’s 31-page brief was filed in the Southern District of New York late Friday, and the group was joined by CAA, the Music Artists Coalition, the National Association of Voice Actors, Writer, Inc, and the Creative Coalition on AI. The brief featured an appendix with a suite of Hollywood stars supportive of the cause, including Anne Hathaway, Emma Thompson, Dan Levy, Ron Howard, Madonna, Olivia Wilde and more.
“Defendants have argued that licensing creative works for AI training is cost-prohibitive,” the brief read. “Defendants also claim there is no settled means of valuing training data. The facts demonstrate otherwise. The creative industries already have in place a proven infrastructure and workflows to clear rights for dispersed works at scale and cost-effectively.”
In a statement, HCF co-founder and CEO Nikki Hexum said the filing was intended to show the court “how the creative industry actually works and acknowledge the solutions that have been built and are continuing to develop for this new digital era.”
“Our goal is to ensure that as the market for AI data licensing grows, the humans who create the value in that market are protected and have a meaningful choice,” Hexum added. “We are not starting from scratch. There is already a functioning market and infrastructure for licensing creative work. We just need to ensure that new AI technology respects those boundaries and choices, including the choice not to participate.”
The Human Consent Foundation was founded as RSL Media in May by Hexum and Blanchett, launching a registry in June where people could log what permissions they gave AI models to scrape their likenesses. The HCF is also backed by Steven Soderbergh, and he and Blanchett offered statements in the brief declaring that the principle of permission should not change in the AI era.
“I’ve been working in film and theater for over 30 years, and in that time, the principle has never changed,” Blanchett said in the brief. “If someone wants to use my face, my voice or my image, they ask me first. There is a contract. There is a conversation. This isn’t a new idea or a complicated legal framework, it is simply how we treat each other in this industry. Consent isn’t a barrier to creativity, it is the foundation of it.”
Other celebrity signatories include Ariana DeBose, Bette Midler, Christian Vesper, Christine Vachon, Helen Mirren, Dave Eggers, Francesca Amfitheatrof, Greg Berlanti, Julia Roberts, Melody Walker, Nina Gregory, Paul Feig, Ram Bergman, Rian Johnson, Richard Louderback, Robert De Niro, Rosario Dawson, Scarlett Johansson, Vince Gilligan and the Stan Lee Foundation.
An OpenAI spokesperson pointed Variety to a blog post published on Friday featuring briefs from several groups — including the U.S. government, as of last month — in support of the tech giant’s position that its scraping was protected by the “fair use” doctrine, which gives people the right to use copyrighted work without the rights holder’s permission in select cases.
“Experts and leaders across a wide range of fields have recognized that fair use is a win-win that benefits everyone, and have shared their perspectives with the Court in filing briefs in support of fair use,” the post read.
Microsoft did not respond to an immediate request for comment.
The amicus brief came a day after SAG-AFTRA, the Writers Guild of America and the American Federation of Musicians filed their own brief against OpenAI and Microsoft, urging the court that the tech companies’ claim that their actions constituted fair use “would render moot the terms the unions and the industry agreed to at the bargaining table.”
“It would harm not just the copyright owners, but the people who create the work,” their Thursday brief read.
The New York Times filed its lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, one of the startup’s chief backers, in December 2023, alleging the ChatGPT founder violated the publisher’s copyright by scraping thousands of news articles without permission. The Times filed for summary judgment in the case last month.
Source: variety.com
