'Stealing isn't innovation', why is Hollywood coming back against Ai?
The title? 'Stealing isn't innovation'. Once again Hollywood actors, singers and creatives are speaking out against the indiscriminate use of artificial intelligence. Turning the spotlight on potential Ai-related copyright violations is the Human Artistry Campaign, which has gathered almost 900 signatories including Scarlett Johansson, Cate Blanchett, Billy Corgan and Rem, united under the idea that "stealing our work is not innovation. It is not progress. It is theft, pure and simple'. On the campaign website, supporters emphasise that 'there is a better way to act. Through licensing agreements and partnerships,' they explain, 'some artificial intelligence companies have taken a responsible and ethical route to obtain the content and materials they wish to use'. The warning is not against the technology itself.
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Hollywood is no stranger to protests against AI: in recent years we have seen writers and actors raise their voices, even going on long and hard union strikes in 2023 where screenwriters (Writers Guild of America) and actors (SAG-AFTRA) took to the streets against the studios also over the use of AI and to protect compensation and royalties. In particular, the actors' union carried out its longest strike in recent history precisely to demand clear rules on the use of AI that could digitally replicate actors' performances without just compensation or consent. Last year, Cate Blanchett, together with 400 directors, writers, actors and musicians, signed a letter addressed to the White House asking them not to give in to the demands of tech bigwigs to be able to train their systems on copyrighted works without permission.
Why are they still protesting?
The heart of the conflict lies in the concept of 'training' generative models. Screenwriters claim that technology giants and production studios have used thousands of protected scripts, the result of decades of intellectual labour, to feed algorithms capable of replicating styles, rhythms and narrative structures without ever paying a dollar license fee or asking for consent from the original authors. From a copyright expert's point of view, we are facing a potential systematic violation of intellectual property on an industrial scale, where the final product risks becoming a 'derivative work' that escapes the meshes of current law.
At the same time, the battle shifts to the terrain of image and personality rights. For actors, the possibility of majors acquiring the right to scan their bodies and voices to generate synthetic performances is a legal nightmare. In the absence of ironclad clauses, a studio could theoretically own the 'digital twin' of a performer and use it in future productions without the flesh-and-blood human being ever having to return to the set or receive so-called residuals, i.e. the recurring fees that guarantee the economic stability of performers.
This collective resistance aims to protect human exceptionalism as the only requirement for legal protection. If machines were to replace writing or acting entirely, the copyright system would collapse, as current jurisprudence only grants protection to works born of human ingenuity. The strikes and protests of recent times are therefore a defensive manoeuvre to prevent the industry from turning into an automated assembly line where economic value is drained from creatives to software owners, leaving culture orphaned of legal protections and a certain authorial identity.
