Nearly 800 artists, writers, actors and musicians have signed a new campaign against what they call “a massive theft” by AI companies. Signatories to the campaign – called “Stealing Not Innovation” – include writers George Sanders and Judy Picoult, actors Cate Blanchett and Scarlett Johansson, and musicians such as the band Ram, Billy Cargan, and The Roots.
“Driven by intense competition for leadership in the new generation of technology, profit-hungry technology companies, including some of the world’s wealthiest as well as private equity-backed ventures, have copied vast amounts of creative content online without permission or payment to creators,” a press release reads. “This illegal intellectual property grab fosters an information ecosystem dominated by a vapid artificial avalanche of misinformation, deepfakes, and low-quality content (the ‘AI slope’), threatening the collapse of the AI model and directly threatening America’s AI superiority and international competitiveness.”
The advocacy effort is from the Human Artistry Campaign, a group of organizations that includes the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), professional sports players’ unions, and actor unions such as SAG-AFTRA. The messages of the Churi Nai Badaat campaign will appear in full-page advertisements on news outlets and social media. In particular, the campaign calls for licensing agreements and a “healthy implementation environment”, as well as the right for artists to opt out of their work being used to train generative AI.
At the federal level, President Donald Trump and his tech industry allies are trying to control how states regulate AI and punish those who try. At the industry level, tech companies and rights owners who were once on opposing sides are increasingly cutting licensing deals that allow AI companies to use protected works — licensing content appears to be a solution that both sides can live with, at least for now. For example, major record labels have now partnered with AI music startups to provide their catalogs for AI remixing and model training. Digital publishers, some of whom have sued AI companies over their work training, have supported licensing standards that outlets can use to prevent their content from surfacing in AI search results. Some outlets have signed individual deals with tech companies that allow AI chatbots to surface news content (Disclosure: Vox Media, Verge(The parent company has a licensing deal with Openei.)
