WGA Slams Studios For Inaction On Copyrighted Works Used In Gen AI

The Writers Guild of America says the Hollywood studios have “harmed” its members and violated the Minimum Basic Agreement by not acting on the use of their copyrighted works to train generative AI models.

A seething letter issued Thursday by the guild claims that tech companies like Meta, Apple and Salesforce have “looted the studios’ intellectual property — a vast reserve of works created by generations of union labor — to train their artificial intelligence systems” and the studios have done “nothing to stop this theft.”

The letter — addressed to the CEOs of Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney, Paramount Global, NBCUniversal, Sony, Netflix, and Amazon MGM Studios — is in response to a recent Atlantic article confirming the use of tens of thousands of films and TV episodes to create a data set that has been used by many major tech companies to develop their own artificial intelligence systems.

Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery declined to comment on the matter. Deadline reached out to the relevant studios and streamers about the guild letter. If and when we hear back from the rest, this post will be updated.

The WGA also warns that its collective bargaining agreement requires studios to defend their copyrights on behalf of writers.

“It’s time for the studios to come off the sidelines. 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 letter concluded. “The studios should take immediate legal action against any company that has used our members’ works to train AI systems.”