Google, Meta Bid Millions for Hollywood Content as AI Licencing Race Heats Up: Report

Google and Meta have reportedly joined OpenAI in the artificial intelligence (AI) content licensing war. OpenAI has been making numerous deals with news publishers and other websites to access their data to train its AI models. As per a report, Google and Meta have also entered the market to strike content licensing deals with Hollywood studios. It is said that the tech giants intend to use this database to train their video generation models. Notably, Google recently unveiled its AI video model Veo.

Google and Meta reportedly hold discussions with Hollywood Studios

According to a report by Bloomberg, both Google and Meta are trying to get access to the large content libraries of Hollywood studios to train their respective AI video models. While Google might want these partnerships for Veo, Meta has not publicly announced any such model. However, the report claims that the social media giant might be working on a video model internally.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the report highlighted that both companies have offered tens of millions of dollars to partner with studios. While the Hollywood studios are said to be interested in forging partnerships, they are also concerned about losing control of how their content will be used by the Silicon Valley giants.

Hollywood studios reportedly give mixed responses

As per the report, Netflix and Walt Disney have refused to licence their content to the companies. However, they have expressed their interest in forming other types of partnerships. It is not known what these partnerships are. On the other hand, Warner Bros Discovery has reportedly shown a willingness to licence some specific programmes to train the AI, but not its full content library.

It is believed the recent incident involving Hollywood actor Scarlett Johansson, where she accused OpenAI of creating a voice for ChatGPT that sounds very similar to hers has also contributed in raising concerns among Hollywood studios.

However, OpenAI has been successful in making some content licensing deals with media publications. It has reportedly signed a deal with News Corp, which is the parent company of the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, New York Post, The Daily Telegraph, and others. Both Google and OpenAI have also signed a deal to access real-time content from Reddit.