Character.AI, an artificial intelligence company, announced that it had placed all its Disney roles under its chat robot platform at the request of Disney. Disney had previously sent a warning letter to Character.AI to stop immediately the unauthorized use of its copyrighted role.
According to NBC news, Disney’s warning letter of 18 September states: “Character.AI chooses a systematic reproduction, realization and use of Disney’s copyright and trademark-protected role, which runs counter to Disney’s brand and traditional core values.” Character.AI’s spokesman’s statement responded: “We respond promptly to the copyright party’s request for content removal. The fall was a response to such requests and the role had been removed.” Character.AI was founded in 2021 as a chat robot start-up company that plays “personally AI” services, providing for the interaction of a predefined AI role with a unique personality and for which users can customize chat robots. This was preceded by the emergence of a large number of home-made Disney roles AI, including Princess Aisha of Ice Fiction, Mona, the lead actor of Oceanic Fiction, Peter Parker of Spider-Man, and the anti-Star Wars anti-Pedagoda Vida.
Character.AI’s spokesperson explained: “Some of the roles are original, while others are inspired by existing ones that users like. It’s like being created with one another, just in the form of interaction.” Now most of the AIs that are similar to Disney IP roles have been put down. “We want to work with industry and copyrighters to help them introduce roles into our platforms.” The speaker added that “Our goal is to provide IP owners with the tools to create controlled, interesting and rewarding experiences from deep fan interaction”.
Artificial intelligence continues to be the focus of debate in Hollywood. Industry leaders noted that as more film producers use AI tools and producers work with AI to explore content creation applications, AI applications are being mainstreamed in the area of video and video. But this fast-growing technology also raises concerns among creative people. During the Hollywood scripts and actor strikes in 2023, practitioners demanded that jobs not be replaced by AI. Many copyright users, including writers, news agencies and music companies during the year, have filed lawsuits against such scientific and technological companies as OpenAI, Microsoft and Anthropic for unauthorized use of Content Training AI. Today, studios are also taking a stronger position on copyright infringement in the AI model. Reuters reported this month that Disney, the Globe Film Industry and Warner had filed a tort suit against the country’s original AI company MiniMax for stealing the studio’s IP from its video-generation service, HyperAi. Warner has also recently become the newest producer against Midjourney, accusing his operations of being based on extensive theft of content. Disney and Globe initiated similar proceedings against AI as early as June.
Character.AI and others have also been criticized over the past year for their impact on young users. At this month’s United States Senate Judicial Committee hearing, parents and cyber security advocates urged Congress to push for enhanced chat robots’ safety, accusing technology companies of deliberately designing addictive products to “guile” children. Last year, a mother in Florida, United States, named Megan Garcia, sued Character.AI for “abuse and sexual interaction” by a chat robot. In May this year, United States District Judge Anne Conway rejected the argument that “AI chat robots have the right to freedom of expression”, which means that this irregular death claim can now be pursued. According to the Legal Center for Social Media Victims in the United States, three other claims for product liability were filed this year against Character.AI on behalf of the family of its underage user, accusing the company of “intentionally designing, deploying and marketing predatory chat robotic techniques against children”. In one of the proceedings, the parents of a 13-year-old girl accused Character.AI chat robots of having committed suicide in 2023.
Disney quoted, inter alia, a report entitled Sexual Exploitation, Manoeuvring and Violence in Characterai Children’s Account, stating: “Character.AI’s tort chat robots are known to have sexually exploited in some cases and to cause other harm and danger to children, which not only provokes Disney’s consumers, but also disproportionately damages Disney’s reputation and goodwill”. Character.AI, following a parliamentary hearing, stated that “a great deal of resources has been invested in building trust and security” over the past year, including the creation of an independent model for minors, the introduction of a “parent insight” function, and the creation of a sharp reminder during the dialogue that user chat robots are not real people.
