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OpenAI’s Sora 2 video generator has gone viral, particularly among users churning out anime that looks suspiciously like Studio Ghibli and other copyrighted works. Alarmed by the threat to one of its prized cultural exports, Japan has reportedly lodged a formal request that the American firm knock it off.
Japanese Minister of State for Intellectual Property Strategy Minoru Kiuchi revealed that the government made a formal request to OpenAI through the Cabinet Office's IP Strategy Promotion Secretariat last week during a press conference, as reported by Japanese media.
"Anime and manga are irreplaceable treasures that we can be proud of around the world," Kiuchi said last week, according to Japanese tech news outlet ITMedia. "We have requested OpenAI not to engage in any actions that could constitute copyright infringement."
For those who remain blissfully unaware of the copyright-headache machine that is Sora 2, OpenAI released its latest and greatest video and image generation engine at the end of last month, and the reaction from IP copyright holders was a near instantaneous cry of horror.
Almost immediately upon release, videos began flooding social media with characters owned by Japanese gaming giant Nintendo in situations they might not be in were Nintendo making the ultimate decision, like Pikachu storming the beaches of Normandy or Mario being pulled over for driving his go-kart like a maniac (i.e., in keeping with his Mario Kart performance). Nintendo is among the companies that have registered their discontent.
OpenAI reportedly told copyright holders that they would have to opt out of having their content digested and regurgitated by Sora 2, but the outcry from IP holders led CEO Sam Altman to quickly backtrack and promise to give more control to rightsholders over the use of their content.
Altman made particular reference to Japan in his blog post, dated October 3, saying OpenAI wanted "to acknowledge the remarkable creative output of Japan," and noting he was "struck by how deep the connection between users and Japanese content is."
According to Japanese politician Akihisa Shiozaki, that acknowledgement took political pressure to accomplish.
"When I tried entering a prompt into Sora 2, it generated a succession of images of popular anime characters with such high quality that it was indistinguishable from the real thing," Shiozaki said in a blog post written days after Altman's Sora 2 note. "However, for some reason, characters whose rights are owned by major American companies, such as Mickey Mouse or Superman, did not appear."
Shiozaki described the difference in how Sora was treating US vs. Japanese IP as "a serious problem under copyright law," specifically the AI Promotion Act enacted earlier this year, Section 16 of which gives the government the authority to take action against businesses that infringe on the rights and interests of Japanese citizens due to inappropriate use of AI.
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Shiozaki claimed in his post that he spoke directly with executives from OpenAI after he expressed concern over Sora 2's treatment of Japanese IP, and that Altman's statement was published shortly after their discussion.
"Also, as promised, shortly after the announcement, unauthorized creation of problematic Japanese anime and game characters began to be blocked one after another, confirming a significant strengthening of filtering," Shiozaki noted. "It is clear that the company's policy change was based on strong concerns expressed by Japan."
Minister Kiuchi's statement that the Japanese Cabinet Office had contacted OpenAI on its own comes after Shiozaki's blog post, however, suggesting the government still isn't happy with the state of Sora 2's copyright control.
As of this writing, attempts to generate videos in Sora of particular Japanese characters (e.g., Final Fantasy VII's Cloud Strife, or Final Fantasy characters more broadly) were met with a copyright warning and refusal to generate the video. Asking for art in the style of popular Japanese animation studios like Hayao Miyazaki's Ghibli, on the other hand, still generated results.
A number of anime-style videos mimicking various studios' styles still appear on the Sora app, suggesting Japan may have more to do to rein in the misuse of its "irreplaceable treasures."
OpenAI didn't respond to questions for this story. ®
