One of the biggest topics of discussion in the media in 2025 has been AI. Large Language models that collect massive amounts of data in order to do what they do, and large amounts of that data belong to copyright holders. Companies have filed lawsuits over the use of that content, and while no legal decisions have yet been made, Disney has gone in the other direction with industry leader OpenAI and apparently decided, if you can’t beat them, at least make sure they pay you.
Disney Has Made A Major Investment In OpenAI
This morning, The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI announced a landmark deal that sees more than 200 Disney characters added to Sora, OpenAI’s short-form video production product, and sees Disney take an equity stake in OpenAI that is worth an incredible $1 billion. That's a lot of money; though considering what OpenAI is supposedly worth, it's a realtively small stake.
Disney is now an OpenAI customer, which will use the platform to build new tools and allow Disney Cast members access to ChatGPT. Some of the videos created for Sora will also end up being listed on Disney+ for others to view, and OpenAI will be used to “power” new experiences for those with a Disney+ subscription.
It’s not open season on Disney content in OpenAI. Only a number of characters will be made available, and it’s specified in the announcement that likeness and voice rights are not part of this deal. This means that while you might be able to make a video of yourself driving Lightning McQueen, you seemingly won’t be able to make him sound like Owen Wilson.
In addition, “robust controls” will reportedly be in place to prevent the use of Disney characters to create illegal or harmful content and to respect the rights of content owners. It says all the right things, but I’m still not sold on this whole thing.
As A Disney Fan, I’m Worried
On the surface, an idea like this might not appear so bad. It’s giving fans access to popular characters to make fun videos. Walt Disney was a committed futurist who, I'm sure, would have been at least interested in what AI could do. What could be bad about all that? Well, a lot, honestly.
First off, I have some real questions about exactly how this will work. The statement claims that voice and likeness rights are not part of this deal, and to be sure, the majority of the characters listed for use are animated creations or people who wear masks or helmets. However, some characters specifically listed for use include Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Loki. So people will be able to use these characters, but in a way where they don’t actually look or sound like the characters we know? How is that going to work?
In the one case where an AI voice of a Disney character was used legally, James Earl Jones' Darth Vader appeared in Fortnite, the results were not great. Marvel star Scarlett Johansson is in a battle with OpenAI, specifically over the alleged use of her voice. This is a known issue already.
Beyond that, there’s the simple issue that while the day may come that I trust these AI systems to limit the use of copyrighted material to specifically prescribed uses, I don’t believe that day is currently here. I've seen the videos people have made of "Walt Disney" complaining about the prices at Magic Kingdom. using a model that looks less like the real man than the Walt audio-animatronic at Disneyland. This will get misused, and the result will be things Disney likely doesn’t want to see its characters doing.
Beyond the mechanics, however, there is he simple issue that up until now, when I see Mickey Mouse, I know it’s something special. When he appears in a cartoon or in a theme park, it's because the company named for the man who co-created Mickey Mouse himself decided he should be there.
These characters are just going to become less special if they can be used by anybody to do anything. Disney fought for decades to keep Mickey Mouse under copyright as long as possible to prevent this sort of thing from happening. When that finally changed, we got shitty horror movies made by people with little interest in putting in the effort to actually create something worthy. Now Disney is telling people they can have Mickey Mouse do even more, while putting in no effort at all.
