OpenAI killed Sora this week, taking Disney’s $1 billion equity bet down with it (Variety). Three months after the two companies struck a “groundbreaking” deal licensing 200 Disney characters for AI video generation, the app is just gone — no explanation offered (Ars Technica). The Patreon CEO has a phrase for the pattern: AI companies call it fair use when training on independent creators, then cut multimillion-dollar deals with Disney and Warner Music when they need the brands (Fortune). Apparently the same creative property is both free and worth paying for — depending on who’s asking.
Control over creative work is slipping elsewhere, too. Producers of the Broadway Dog Day Afternoon adaptation threw playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis out of rehearsals weeks before opening after a clash with a Warner Bros. exec (The New York Times). The Boston Symphony, having fired Andris Nelsons, still doesn’t seem to have a plan for what comes next (Boston Globe). And Tacoma Arts Live has filed for receivership, preparing to sell the historic Tacoma Armory on its way out (Seattle Times).
The inaugural Hilary Mantel Prize went to Anna Dempsey for an unpublished novel called This Is About an Alligator and Nothing Else (The Guardian). A title Mantel herself would have appreciated.
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