AI Concerns Remain in Post-Strike Hollywood
Existential crises in Hollywood, including those induced by AI advancement, may not stop even after strikes wrap.
The entertainment industry has been experiencing a shift, with strikes that yielded gains like streaming residuals and AI advances for the writers (and hopefully soon will be for the actors), while also accelerating the change of an unsustainable dynamic. High interest rates and industry consolidation have pushed studios to cut deals and reduce budgets, and thus post-strike Hollywood will face the challenge of a leaner industry as studios either dropped some projects or became more cautious in greenlighting when things were on pause. The silver lining, however, is the stress on selectivity, as ‘Avatar’ producer Jon Landau stated, “there needs to be more of a focus on quality,” regardless of the scale and formats.
As the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike recently ended and the SAG-AFTRA negotiations are actively underway, The Hollywood Reporter outlines the five crises that the industry still needs to face together in the post-strike era, with the continuing uncertainty and changes, including the questions about streaming as the new business model, potentially declining TV and theatrical business, and the fact that many young audiences’ attention are drawn to social media platforms like YouTube and Tik Tok. One of the discussed crises, and the one delved into below, is the concern over artificial intelligence (AI).
Generative AI's role in Hollywood has ignited tension between creators and studios. In recent negotiations between the WGA and studios, the guild secured protections ensuring members receive credit and pay regardless of whether AI tools are used. However, a significant point of dispute about whether studios can use writers' material for AI training data remained unsolved. Despite the WGA's deal acknowledging the rapidly changing legal landscape around AI, the agreement did not directly address this issue, hinting at potential future litigation for both sides.
Chris Keyser, a negotiation committee co-chair, mentioned that some studios believe they possess some ongoing copyright rights in writers' work. The issue is further complicated by recent cases where leading artists and authors sue the tech companies such as OpenAI and Meta for mass-scale copyright infringement, as they sourced copyrighted works from the internet as training data for AI systems. Therefore, in many cases, these copyright infringements may be harming studios’ rights to intellectual property as well.
Many in the industry believe that studios should protect copyrights, as Darren Trattner, an entertainment lawyer, also emphasized the shared interest between studios and writers. There is growing concern that AI firms, equipped with advanced generative tools and considerable financial backing, might eventually compete with studios in scriptwriting, and a WGA member thinks that the studios will not be able to compete with the tech giants if the situation evolves to that point. It is also noted that prominent tech companies like Apple and Amazon, already part of the AMPTP, could pose a significant challenge to legacy studios.
Although the WGA deal was recently ratified, officially ending the strike and restarting writers’ work, the conversations about AI in entertainment have just started.