3 Count: Disney’s Darling

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1: Disney Making $1 Billion Investment in OpenAI, Will Allow Characters on Sora AI Video Generator

First off today, Ashley Capoot at CNBC reports that Disney has signed a three-year deal with OpenAI. The agreement includes a $1 billion investment by Disney into OpenAI and will enable OpenAI’s Sora to make AI-generated videos featuring over 200 Disney-owned characters.

In return for the investment, Disney will receive equity in the company and will have the ability to purchase additional equity in the future. Disney will also begin deploying OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, to its employees, and the two will start to develop new tools and experiences.

When launched in December 2024, OpenAI’s video generation tool, Sora, was both incredibly popular and controversial. Many companies, including Disney, argued that it was enabling copyright infringement by allowing users to create videos featuring famous characters. OpenAI required rightsholders to opt out of Sora, prompting many to send legal threats to the company.

2: Disney Accuses Google of Using AI to Engage in Copyright Infringement on ‘Massive Scale’

Next up today, Todd Spangler at Variety reports that, at the same time it was signing its agreement with OpenAI, Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter to Google, alleging that the search giant was using its AI models to “commercially exploit and distribute” infringing images and videos.

Historically, Disney has been aggressive in targeting AI companies. In June 2025, the company filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Midjourney and sent similar letters to Meta and Character.AI regarding their AI systems.

Google has not responded to the letter, which calls on them to “immediately cease further copying, publicly displaying, publicly performing, distributing, and creating derivative works of Disney’s copyrighted characters” and create guardrails to prevent user infringement.

3: Sculptor Suing Jeff Koons Faces Skeptical Appeals Court in Copyright Case

Finally, today, Blake Brittain at Reuters reports that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals appeared skeptical of sculptor Michael Hayden’s arguments in his long-running lawsuit against pop artist Jeff Koons.

Hayden filed the lawsuit in December 2021, alleging that Koons illegally used a sculpture he made in a series of photographs taken in 1989. According to Hayden, he made the sculpture in question in 1988 for Cicciolina, an Italian adult film star whose given name is Ilona Staller, to perform on. In 1989, Koons was photographed with Staller for his Made in Heaven series, which featured the two on the platform.

The district court dismissed Hayden’s claims, saying that he should have been aware of the infringement well before filing the lawsuit. The appeals court seemed to agree, noting that the series caused an uproar in Italy and was even featured on Billboards.

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