Studio Ghibli demands OpenAI halt training on their work

Just a heads up, if you buy something through our links, we may get a small share of the sale. It’s one of the ways we keep the lights on here. Click here for more.

It’s not every day that Studio Ghibli ends up in a showdown with Silicon Valley, but here we are. 

Japan’s Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA), a trade group representing heavy hitters like Studio Ghibli, just sent a strongly worded letter to OpenAI, politely asking the company to stop feeding their copyrighted works to its AI models without permission.

The kerfuffle started when OpenAI rolled out its image generator earlier this year, and the internet collectively lost its mind over “Ghibli-style” portraits. 

Suddenly, everyone’s selfies and pets were reimagined as if they’d wandered out of Spirited Away. 

Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman got in on the action, swapping his X profile picture for a “Ghiblified” version of himself.

But as OpenAI’s new video generator, Sora, starts making waves, CODA isn’t smiling at the whimsy. 

The group says enough is enough, requesting that OpenAI stop using their members’ content for training unless it gets explicit permission. 

And given Japan’s stricter copyright laws, this isn’t just a polite nudge; it’s a warning shot across the Pacific.

OpenAI, for its part, has generally followed a “forgiveness over permission” approach, an attitude that’s drawn heat not only from Japanese studios but also from global powerhouses like Nintendo and even the estate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

Critics worry that tools like Sora could churn out deepfakes of copyrighted characters, or real people, without consent.

The legal waters here are murky. US copyright law hasn’t had a major update since 1976, and while a recent ruling found that AI training on copyrighted material wasn’t illegal, Japan’s laws interpret things differently. 

CODA argues that even using copyrighted material in training could count as infringement under Japanese law.

As for Hayao Miyazaki, Ghibli’s famously cranky genius, he hasn’t weighed in this time. But back in 2016, when shown an AI-generated animation, he called it “an insult to life itself.” 

If that’s any hint, it’s safe to say he wouldn’t be too thrilled about Sora turning Totoro into training data.