By Brian Barrett
Publication Date: 2025-12-11 16:49:00
On Thursday, Disney and OpenAI have announced a deal that may have seemed unthinkable not long ago. Starting next year, OpenAI will be able to use Disney characters such as Mickey Mouse, Ariel and Yoda in its Sora video generation model. Disney will invest $1 billion in OpenAI and its employees will have access to the company’s APIs and ChatGPT. None of this makes much sense – unless Disney was fighting a battle it couldn’t win.
Disney has always been a notoriously aggressive litigator over its intellectual property. It, along with IP giant Universal, sued Midjourney in June over releases that allegedly infringed on classic film and television characters. The night before the OpenAI deal was announced, Disney reportedly sent a cease-and-desist letter to Google alleging copyright infringement on a “massive scale.”
On the surface, there seems to be some dissonance about Disney embracing OpenAI while simultaneously poking fun at its rivals. But it’s more than likely that Hollywood will get involved…
