AI image of Sam Altman grilling Pikachu (@shlms/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 1:07PM

Updated 10/6/25 4:05PM

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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