OpenAI's Studio Ghibli-style viral moment sparks AI copyright debate

OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman even seems to have created his profile photo a Studio Ghibli-inspired image which was likely made using GPT-4o's native image-generating. Users are uploading their existing photos and images to ChatGPT and then asking ChatGPT to recreate them with different styles.

The latest update for OpenAI is a follow-up to Google's announcement of an identical AI image feature within it's Gemini Flash model, which also caused a sensational viral moment in March, when users used it to get rid of watermarks on images.

Google's new tools and OpenAI's enable users to create the style of works with copyright rights simply by entering in a text prompt. Together, these latest AI images features could raise concerns about the root of a number of lawsuits involving artificial intelligence (AI) AI model makers. If these companies train using copyrighted work, are they in violation of copyright laws?

As per Evan Brown, an intellectual property lawyer with law firms Neal & McDevitt, products like GPT-4o's image generator native to the platform are operating in a legal gray zone in the present. Style isn't explicitly protected through copyright, says Brown which means OpenAI doesn't appear to be in violation of the law by simply creating images that resemble Studio Ghibli films.

The New York Times and various publishers are involved engaged in litigation against OpenAI and OpenAI, alleging that the company has trained its AI models on works that are copyrighted without proper or proper attribution or payment.