Hollywood's Open Letter on Copyright Protections

More than 400 Hollywood creative leaders signed an open letter to the Trump White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, urging the administration to not roll back copyright protections at the behest of AI companies. The filmmakers, writers, actors, musicians and others — which included Ben Stiller, Mark Ruffalo, Cynthia Erivo, Cate Blanchett, Cord Jefferson, Paul McCartney, Ron Howard and Taika Waititi — were submitting comments for the Trump administration’s U.S. AI Action Plan⁠.

The letter specifically was penned in response to recent submissions to the Office of Science and Technology Policy from OpenAI and Google, which asserted that U.S. copyright law allows (or should allow) AI companies to train their system on copyrighted works without obtaining permission from (or compensating) rights holders. “We firmly believe that America’s global AI leadership must not come at the expense of our essential creative industries,” the letter says in part.

Signatories

The letter’s signatories include a list of prominent Hollywood figures such as Ben Stiller, Mark Ruffalo, Guillermo del Toro, Natasha Lyonne, Paul McCartney, Cynthia Erivo, Cate Blanchett, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Cord Jefferson, Bette Midler, Ava Duvernay, and many more.

Concerns Raised

The letter claims that “AI companies are asking to undermine this economic and cultural strength by weakening copyright protections for the films, television series, artworks, writing, music and voices used to train AI models at the core of multibillion-dollar corporate valuations.”

Google and OpenAI Submissions

The letter addresses submissions made by Google and OpenAI to the Office of Science and Technology Policy, where the companies argued for exceptions to copyright law to support AI development. Google emphasized the importance of balanced copyright rules, while OpenAI alleged that fair use doctrine promotes AI development.

Full Text of the Letter

Here is the full text of the letter from the Hollywood signatories: (The text includes Hollywood’s response to the Administration’s Artificial Intelligence Action Plan and the necessity that copyright law be upheld.)

As the entertainment industry members state, they believe that America’s global AI leadership should not compromise the essential creative industries and stress the importance of upholding copyright protections to maintain the strength of America’s creative and knowledge industries, as well as American cultural influence abroad.