AI image of Sam Altman grilling Pikachu (@shlms on Sora)

OpenAI’s Altman: Sora will let copyright holders control how their characters appear

The buzzy AI video generation app is tweaking its lax controls for generating copyrighted characters in users’ videos.

10/6/25 12:07PM

Updated 10/6/25 3:05PM

OpenAI is moving fast and breaking things. Its new invite-only generative-AI video app, Sora, spent the weekend at the top of the App Store charts, letting users generate videos of copyrighted characters in situations that would make a brand manager blush.

Sora was released into the world with few controls to prevent people from violating intellectual property rights, using a novel opt-out mechanism for media companies. Now OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has announced some changes that will give IP owners control over how their characters could appear in Sora videos (or not at all).

“We are hearing from a lot of rightsholders who are very excited for this new kind of ‘interactive fan fiction’ and think this new kind of engagement will accrue a lot of value to them, but want the ability to specify how their characters can be used (including not at all).”

The service is not cheap to run. At today’s OpenAI DevDay keynote, Altman announced Sora 2 API access, which gives a first glimpse of the cost of generating the videos. The “sora-2-pro” model, which is used for the Sora app, costs developers $0.30 per second, which works out to $3 for each of Sora’s 10-second videos.

Altman seems interested in figuring out how to monetize all this:

“We are going to have to somehow make money for video generation. People are generating much more than we expected per user, and a lot of videos are being generated for very small audiences. We are going to try sharing some of this revenue with rightsholders who want their characters generated by users.”

That sounds good, but what revenue? The app is free and has no ads, and it remains to be seen if people would stick around for endless AI slop of Sam Altman barbecuing Pikachu or cringe-rapping.

Bill Peebles, the head of Sora at OpenAI, posted on X that new controls are available today for users to manage the context in which their “cameos” appear in other users’ videos.

sora update: cameo and safety improvements inbound!

1. cameo restrictions: we've heard from lots of folks who want to make their cameos available to everyone but retain control over how they're used.

starting today, you can now give instructions to sora that restrict the type…
— Bill Peebles (@billpeeb) October 5, 2025

An example of the new controls shared by an OpenAI staffer shows a preference panel that lets a user say that they must always appear wearing a hat that says “#1 Ketchup Fan” and never appear in videos with mustard or relish.

UPDATE (October 6, 4 p.m. ET): Added details around the cost for generating Sora videos.

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Trump AI executive order is a “major win” for Open AI, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, says Ives

President Trump’s new executive order aiming to keep states from enacting AI laws that inhibit US “global AI dominance” is a “major win” for OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives. Big Tech companies have collectively plowed hundreds of billions into the technology, while seeing massive stock price gains, and Ives believes they stand to gain much more.

“Given that there have been over 1,000 AI laws proposed at the state level, this was a necessary move by the Trump Administration to keep the US out in front for the AI Revolution over China,” Ives wrote, adding that state-by-state regulation “would have crushed US AI startup culture.” The presidential order would withhold federal funds from states that put in place onerous AI regulations.

This morning, Whitehouse AI adviser Sriram Krishnan said in a CNBC interview that he’d be working with Congress on a single national framework for AI.

Despite Ives’ rosy read-through on the order, with the exception of Nvidia, which jumped on a report of boosted Chinese demand, many AI stocks are in the red early today. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF is down nearly 1% premarket, as the AI trade struggles thanks to underwhelming earnings results from Oracle earlier this week.

Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence

This morning, Whitehouse AI adviser Sriram Krishnan said in a CNBC interview that he’d be working with Congress on a single national framework for AI.

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Epic scores two victories as “Fortnite” returns to Google Play and appeals court keeps injunction against Apple

“Fortnite” maker Epic Games notched two wins Thursday in its drawn-out battle against Big Tech’s app stores. “Fortnite” returned to the Google Play app store in the US, Reuters reports, as Epic continues working with Google to secure court approval for their settlement.

Meanwhile, a US appeals court partly reversed sanctions against Apple in Epic’s antitrust case, calling parts of the order overly broad, but upheld the contempt finding and left a sweeping injunction in place — keeping pressure on Apple to allow developers to steer users to outside payment options and reduce its tight control over how apps can communicate and monetize on iOS.

So many reasons to drop in this month... and now we're on Google Play in the U.S. too!

Android: https://t.co/Z6pkYqYsRI
iPhone: https://t.co/JNpTVneGMN
PC: https://t.co/CPsjp3XNdo pic.twitter.com/TV9b1ZlqfJ
— Fortnite (@Fortnite) December 11, 2025

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Report: AI-powered toys tell kids where to find matches, parrot Chinese government propaganda

You may want to think twice before buying your kids a fancy AI-powered plush toy.

A new report from NBC News found that several AI-powered kids toys could easily be steered to dangerous as well as sexually explicit conversations in a shocking demonstration of the loose safety guardrails in this novel category of consumer electronics.

A report out by the Public Interest Research Group details what researchers found when they tested five AI-powered toys for kids bought from Amazon. Some of the toys offered instructions on where to find matches and how to start fires.

NBC News also bought some of these toys and found they parroted Chinese government propaganda and gave instructions for how to sharpen knives. Some of the toys also discussed inappropriate topics for kids, like sexual kinks.

The category of AI-powered kids toys is under scrutiny as major AI companies like OpenAI have announced partnerships with toy manufacturers like Mattel (which has yet to release an AI-powered toy).

AI toys for kids talk about sex and issue Chinese Communist Party talking points, tests show

The category of AI-powered kids toys is under scrutiny as major AI companies like OpenAI have announced partnerships with toy manufacturers like Mattel (which has yet to release an AI-powered toy).

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OpenAI releases GPT-5.2, the “best model yet for real-world, professional use”

After feeling the heat from Google’s recent launch of its powerful Gemini 3 model, OpenAI’s response to its “code red” has been released, reportedly on an accelerated schedule to keep up with the competition.

The company’s new flagship model, GPT-5.2, is out, and the company is calling it “the most capable model series yet for professional knowledge work.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called it the “smartest generally-available model in the world” and shared benchmarks that showed it achieving higher scores than Gemini 3 Pro and Anthopic’s Claude Opus 4.5 in some software engineering tests and abstract reasoning, math, and science problems.

In a press release announcing the new model, the company said: “Overall, GPT‑5.2 brings significant improvements in general intelligence, long-context understanding, agentic tool-calling, and vision — making it better at executing complex, real-world tasks end-to-end than any previous model.”