Disney Scraps Deepfake Dwayne Johnson After Lawyers Panic About The Public Domain
"Disney spent 18 months negotiating to create a digital version of Dwayne Johnson for the live-action Moana film. Johnson agreed. The technology was ready. Then Disney’s lawyers killed the whole thing ... because they worried parts of the film might end up in the public domain.
This is exactly what we predicted would happen. While everyone obsessed over whether AI training infringes copyright, the more fascinating question was always what happens when AI-generated works can’t get copyright protection at all. Early cases established that copyright only covers human-created works, and the Copyright Office has since clarified that most AI-generated images have no copyright protection (with limited exceptions depending on human creativity added). This should be a boon for the public domain...
This is kind of hilarious on multiple levels. As predicted, that one simple trick (AI-generated works being in the public domain) actually acts as a tool against Hollywood relying on AI tools. ... Of course, studios shouldn’t be so damned afraid of using public domain works. If some bits of the movie are not covered by copyright it’s not going to diminish people’s interest in seeing the full official release via authorized means. It might just mean that some clips are used by fans to remix it in fun ways, possibly driving more attention.
This is the beautiful irony of copyright maximalism eating itself: Disney’s own obsession with controlling every frame of content now prevents them from using the very technology they hoped would let them replace human performers. The actors who called for stronger copyright protections got exactly what they needed—just not how they expected.
Once again, weaker copyright serves creators better than the iron grip of the middlemen who profit from aggregating and controlling their work.
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/08/08/disney-scraps-deepfake-dwayne-johnson-after-lawyers-panic-about-the-public-domain/
... both pleased and not pleased ... pleased that AI is profitable in producing fiction; not pleased that AI is profitable in misrepresenting reality. What's wrong with AI lies not with AI itself, but with those who own and/or mistrain it and misuse it with evil intent.