Hollywood Stars Urge Trump to Protect Copyrights from AI

Over 400 prominent entertainers, including Mark Ruffalo, Paul McCartney, Cynthia Erivo, Cate Blanchett, and Chris Rock, have signed an open letter urging the Trump administration to maintain existing copyright protections against AI training practices. This move comes as the entertainment industry continues its battle with the AI industry, which has been pushing for relaxed laws to facilitate AI development.

The letter was a response to proposals by OpenAI and Google, which have advocated for broadening the U.S. fair use doctrine to cover AI developers. The entertainers argue that such a change would threaten not only the entertainment industry but also other sectors that rely on intellectual property. The letter emphasizes that America’s global AI leadership should not come at the expense of its creative industries, which support over 2.3 million American jobs and contribute over $229 billion in wages annually.

The signatories of the letter include a consortium of entertainment industry luminaries, such as Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, actresses Aubrey Plaza and Carrie Coon, and Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi. They argue that the right to train AI on all copyright-protected content impacts all of America’s knowledge industries, including writers, publishers, photographers, scientists, and other professionals who work with computers and generate intellectual property.

Google, in a statement, emphasized its support for America’s existing fair use framework, asserting that current copyright law enables AI innovation. However, critics argue that broadening the fair use doctrine to cover AI developers would undermine the protections that currently safeguard the entertainment industry and other sectors.

OpenAI has noted SB-1047, a California bill introduced in 2024 by State Senator Scott Wiener, which proposes creating a sandbox to provide liability protections from state-based regulations that focus on frontier model security. The bill aims to keep the U.S. public and private sectors competitive by allowing AI companies of all sizes to pursue advanced AI technology free from regulatory uncertainty.

If OpenAI and Google successfully augment the fair use doctrine to cover AI developers, it could significantly impact the legal battles that writers, artists, and media outlets have been waging against the AI industry since it surged into the mainstream in 2022. The entertainment industry’s stance underscores the broader implications of AI development on intellectual property rights and the creative economy.