Studio Ghibli And Studio That Developed Elden Ring Send Stern Message To OpenAI

While the Ghibli-image trend might be well and truly behind us, the studio behind the artwork, as well as a few other notable studios in Japan, are still fighting against OpenAI regarding copyright infringement laws.

The Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA), an anti-piracy organisation that represents Japanese IP holders like Studio Ghibli, Bandai Namco, released a letter last week to OpenAI, asking to stop using its members' content to train Sora 2, reports Automation.

Apart from Studio Ghibli and Bandai Namco, CODA also represents several other popular Japanese companies, including Square Enix, the studio behind the popular Hitman game series.

The letter states that “CODA considers that the act of replication during the machine learning process may constitute copyright infringement," which comes on the back of the AI model using copyrighted characters that serve as IP of these studios.

Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation studio founded by the legendary filmmaker and manga artist Hayao Miyazaki. Ghibli became famous for its animation style that incorporates detailed, hand-drawn and imaginative visuals.

However, since the launch of ChatGPT 4o in March, there has been a proliferation of "Ghibli style" images. In fact, the profile picture of Sam Altman on X features such a Ghibli-style animation of himself.

The copyright infringement row reached a new stage after the launch of Sora 2, which generated a lot of content involving Japanese IP, prompting the Japanese government to formally ask OpenAI to stop replication Japanese artwork.

Similarly, Bandai Namco, a video-game publisher that has produced games such as Elden Ring, Tekken and Pac Man, has seen its characters and content being reproduced by Sora 2, thus leading to the copyright claims.

CODA is now urging OpenAI to "respond sincerely" to its members' copyright claims and stop using their content for machine learning without any prior permission.