4 ms·

What mad world are we living in where Disney — Disney — is paying someone to lose control over its IP?

by otterley 11mo ago

xhkkffbf 11mo ago
I think they're getting some equity in return for the investment. If it goes up, Disney makes out. If it doesn't, well, ...
- triceratops 11mo ago
  Why not equity in exchange for rights? The crazy thing is they're surrendering both rights and cash.
  - xhkkffbf 11mo ago
    Maybe the negotiations established that the rights were worth $X, but Disney wanted $X + 1 billion worth of stock? While many startups will take anyone's money, it can be hard to invest in some. And the most desirable are the hardest. So maybe Disney was using the IP negotiations to open the door?
dmix 11mo ago
The alternative is they make no money and people still produce them using other video gen tools without the copyright filters. Similar to the music industry piracy battle, it makes more sense to work with the big platforms than fight them.
- nonethewiser 11mo ago
  There are many alternatives. Another is they sue the shit out of Open AI until you basically can't generate anything related to mice or monarchies. This may be the right move but it's by no means forced.
- otterley 11mo ago
  I don’t see the similarity here. When music piracy was facilitated by corporate entities like Napster, the rights holders sued them out of existence, after which piracy evolved into a highly distributed problem that was too costly to prosecute (you can’t sue everyone using BitTorrent one by one). Yes, eventually the music rights holders did facilitate commercial distribution, starting with the iTunes Store, and it was successful because they satisfied the market’s key demand that customers be able to buy one song as a time for 99c, as opposed to the whole album, which would often cost upwards of $10. Also, they didn’t let customers modify the songs or make derivative works. Generating Disney-derived content with AI, on the other hand, requires massive resources that most individuals don’t possess, thus making corporate entities all but essential players in the game. (This may change in a few years as technology improves, but we shall see.) And we’re talking about derivative works here, not mere copies.
  - bloppe 11mo ago
    Buying GPUs and RAM is a bit of a barrier right now, but renting a cloud instance at Modal and running a model off hugging face is relatively affordable
    - otterley 11mo ago
      What open-weight model comes close to the quality of Sora 2 and can run on hardware mere mortals can afford?
Iolaum 11mo ago
Are they losing control though? OpenAI did sign a contract with them and that presumably gives them some power. Maybe less than the power they had over, for example netflix, but still more than nothing. P.S. If you can't win them, join them ...
crazygringo 11mo ago
Disney isn't "paying someone," they're expecting to make money. They're investing. The $1B turns into OpenAI stock. If Disney characters make OpenAI more valuable, that stock and its future dividends become more valuable.
DarkNova6 11mo ago
Disney has been a wannabe tech company for the longest of times. They started the streaming Wars with Disney+ and have had massive spend on AI already. There is virtually no creative or artistic talent left in the company.
- torginus 11mo ago
  Isn't Disney on of the oldest tech companies of all time? The engineering that goes into their parks is insane, and they have been consistently pushing live experiences. The logistics that goes on in the background to let as many people as possible have a good experience is also insane. And that's just Disneyland. There's a guy on youtube who makes fascinating hour-long documentaries about every aspect of Disneyland.
  - buu700 11mo ago
    As I recall, Randy Pausch had a lot of positive things to say about Disney Imagineering.
  - _fzslm 11mo ago
    > There's a guy on youtube who makes fascinating hour-long documentaries about every aspect of Disneyland. you can't nerdsnipe me like that and NOT drop a link. :p what's the channel?
    - neom 11mo ago
      Not OP but if you do wanna see some good youtube that shows what Disney knows about computering, the Disney research hub is super fun: https://www.youtube.com/@DisneyResearchHub/videos https://www.youtube.com/@DisneyResearchHub/videos I remember when I first saw Stickman in 2018 I thought it would be amazing if they continued it all the way out, they went pretty far with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFtNcGnroa8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFtNcGnroa8 to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGOY4KaLLNw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGOY4KaLLNw
    - otterley 11mo ago
RataNova 11mo ago
Disney monetizing the loss of control that was happening anyway

What mad world are we living in where Disney — Disney — is paying someone to lose control over its IP?

I think they're getting some equity in return for the investment. If it goes up, Disney makes out. If it doesn't, well, ...

triceratops 11mo ago
Why not equity in exchange for rights? The crazy thing is they're surrendering both rights and cash.
- xhkkffbf 11mo ago
  Maybe the negotiations established that the rights were worth $X, but Disney wanted $X + 1 billion worth of stock? While many startups will take anyone's money, it can be hard to invest in some. And the most desirable are the hardest. So maybe Disney was using the IP negotiations to open the door?

dmix 11mo ago

The alternative is they make no money and people still produce them using other video gen tools without the copyright filters. Similar to the music industry piracy battle, it makes more sense to work with the big platforms than fight them.

nonethewiser 11mo ago
There are many alternatives. Another is they sue the shit out of Open AI until you basically can't generate anything related to mice or monarchies. This may be the right move but it's by no means forced.
otterley 11mo ago
I don’t see the similarity here. When music piracy was facilitated by corporate entities like Napster, the rights holders sued them out of existence, after which piracy evolved into a highly distributed problem that was too costly to prosecute (you can’t sue everyone using BitTorrent one by one). Yes, eventually the music rights holders did facilitate commercial distribution, starting with the iTunes Store, and it was successful because they satisfied the market’s key demand that customers be able to buy one song as a time for 99c, as opposed to the whole album, which would often cost upwards of $10. Also, they didn’t let customers modify the songs or make derivative works. Generating Disney-derived content with AI, on the other hand, requires massive resources that most individuals don’t possess, thus making corporate entities all but essential players in the game. (This may change in a few years as technology improves, but we shall see.) And we’re talking about derivative works here, not mere copies.
- bloppe 11mo ago
  Buying GPUs and RAM is a bit of a barrier right now, but renting a cloud instance at Modal and running a model off hugging face is relatively affordable
  - otterley 11mo ago
    What open-weight model comes close to the quality of Sora 2 and can run on hardware mere mortals can afford?

Iolaum 11mo ago

Are they losing control though? OpenAI did sign a contract with them and that presumably gives them some power. Maybe less than the power they had over, for example netflix, but still more than nothing. P.S. If you can't win them, join them ...

crazygringo 11mo ago

Disney isn't "paying someone," they're expecting to make money. They're investing. The $1B turns into OpenAI stock. If Disney characters make OpenAI more valuable, that stock and its future dividends become more valuable.

DarkNova6 11mo ago

Disney has been a wannabe tech company for the longest of times. They started the streaming Wars with Disney+ and have had massive spend on AI already. There is virtually no creative or artistic talent left in the company.

torginus 11mo ago
Isn't Disney on of the oldest tech companies of all time? The engineering that goes into their parks is insane, and they have been consistently pushing live experiences. The logistics that goes on in the background to let as many people as possible have a good experience is also insane. And that's just Disneyland. There's a guy on youtube who makes fascinating hour-long documentaries about every aspect of Disneyland.
- buu700 11mo ago
  As I recall, Randy Pausch had a lot of positive things to say about Disney Imagineering.
- _fzslm 11mo ago
  > There's a guy on youtube who makes fascinating hour-long documentaries about every aspect of Disneyland. you can't nerdsnipe me like that and NOT drop a link. :p what's the channel?
  - neom 11mo ago
    Not OP but if you do wanna see some good youtube that shows what Disney knows about computering, the Disney research hub is super fun: https://www.youtube.com/@DisneyResearchHub/videos https://www.youtube.com/@DisneyResearchHub/videos I remember when I first saw Stickman in 2018 I thought it would be amazing if they continued it all the way out, they went pretty far with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFtNcGnroa8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFtNcGnroa8 to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGOY4KaLLNw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGOY4KaLLNw
  - otterley 11mo ago

RataNova 11mo ago

Disney monetizing the loss of control that was happening anyway