The Walt Disney Company has reached a landmark agreement with OpenAI, committing $1 billion to become the first major content licensing partner for OpenAI’s social video platform, Sora. The deal marks a major step for Disney in controlling how its intellectual property is used in AI-generated content.

AI Meets Disney Magic

Through the partnership, Sora users will gain access to over 200 animated, masked, and fictional characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars. In addition, they can use hundreds of animated objects, such as lightsabers, to create short videos or photos designed for social media.

However, the agreement restricts the use of character voices and prohibits long-form video production with Disney’s intellectual property. OpenAI has committed to implementing responsible measures to ensure content safety, including age-appropriate policies and platform-wide oversight.

Protecting Intellectual Property

This agreement comes amid Disney’s increasing legal efforts to protect its content from unauthorized AI use. In recent months, the company has sent cease-and-desist letters to major AI companies like Google and Character.AI and has filed lawsuits against generative AI firms such as Midjourney and MiniMax for large-scale copyright infringement.

Under the new Sora agreement, Disney will retain rights over AI-generated content featuring its characters and will have the ability to highlight the best user-created videos on its Disney+ streaming service.