WGA Swipes at Major Studios After New Report Reveals This…
By Movieguide® Contributor
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has accused several major studios of allowing tech companies to train their AI models using copyrighted works without any compensation for the writers.
The WGA urged the major studios to take legal action against these tech companies and accused them of violating the Minimum Basic Agreement (MBA) between the two groups after a report from The Atlantic revealed that tens of thousands of movies and TV shows have been used to train major AI models.
“The November 18 Atlantic article ‘There’s No Longer Any Doubt That Hollywood Writing is Powering AI’ confirms what was already clear to so many: tech companies have looted the studios’ intellectual property — a vast reserve of works created by generations of union labor — to train their artificial intelligence systems…” the letter reads, per Variety. “The studios, as copyright holders of works written by WGA members, have done nothing to stop this theft. They have allowed tech companies to plunder entire libraries without permission or compensation.”
“The Guild’s collective bargaining agreement — the MBA — expressly requires the studios to defend their copyrights on behalf of writers…As holders of those rights in trust, the studios have a fiduciary obligation to protect against the unauthorized use of works for AI training purposes,” the letter continued.
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“It’s time for the studios to come off the sideline,” the letter added. “After this industry has spent decades fighting piracy, it cannot stand idly by while tech companies steal full libraries of content for their own financial gain. The studios should take immediate legal action against any company that has used our members’ works to train AI systems.”
The WGA sent this letter to the leaders at Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney, Paramount Global, NBCUniversal, Sony, Netflix and Amazon MGM Studios. The companies named as thieves include Apple, Meta, Anthropic, Salesforce and Nvidia.
It remains unclear if the major studios will take any legal steps or if they will continue to play nice with these major tech companies.
READ MORE: OPENAI SUED FOR TRAINING AI SYSTEM ON COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
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