When Hollywood Meets Silicon Valley’s Data Appetite
Cate Blanchett doesn’t mince words. Neither does Cyndi Lauper or George Saunders. About 800 creatives just signed their names to something called “Stealing Isn’t Innovation,” and it’s basically a giant middle finger to AI companies scraping their work without asking.
The campaign comes from the Human Artistry Campaign, which sounds bland but represents some heavy hitters. We’re talking RIAA, SAG-AFTRA, professional sports unions. This isn’t just artists complaining on Twitter anymore.
Their beef? AI companies have been hoovering up creative content like a vacuum cleaner at a craft fair. Books, music, movies, articles. All of it fed into models without a single licensing agreement or royalty check. The press release calls it “theft at a grand scale,” which feels almost understated given how much content we’re talking about.
The Slop Problem Nobody Wants to Talk About
Here’s where it gets interesting. The campaign isn’t just crying foul about copyright. They’re warning about something they call “AI slop,” that watered-down artificial avalanche of mediocre content flooding the internet. Think of it as the creative equivalent of fast food, mass produced and nutritionally empty.
The worry is legitimate. When AI models train on human-created work without permission, then pump out derivative content that crowds out the originals, you get this weird feedback loop. Eventually AI starts training on AI-generated content, which is like making a photocopy of a photocopy until you can’t read anything anymore. They call it “model collapse.”
What the creatives want sounds reasonable on paper. Licensing agreements. The right to opt out. An enforcement system that actually works. Basic stuff that recognizes creative work has value and the people who made it deserve a say.
But here’s the messy part. Some of those same organizations are already cutting deals. Major record labels are partnering with AI music startups. Digital publishers are setting up licensing standards. Vox Media, which owns The Verge reporting on this story, has a licensing deal with OpenAI. The battle lines are blurrier than anyone wants to admit.
Follow the Money and the Power
President Trump and his Technology industry buddies are trying to control how states regulate AI. That’s code for “don’t let California or New York set rules that might slow us down.” The federal government wants centralized control, which conveniently helps the biggest tech companies steamroll local opposition.
Scarlett Johansson signed this campaign. She’s also the actor who accused OpenAI of cloning her voice for ChatGPT after she said no. Billy Corgan is on there. R.E.M. The Roots. Jodi Picoult. These aren’t fringe voices worried about irrelevance. They’re established creatives watching their life’s work become training data.
The campaign will run full-page ads and flood social media, which feels a bit like fighting fire with gasoline. You’re using the platforms that enabled this mess to complain about the mess. But what else are they supposed to do? Send letters to Congress?
The real question nobody’s answering is whether licensing actually solves this or just puts a legal veneer on the same exploitation. If Getty Images can cut a deal with an AI company, does that make it okay? What about the photographer who uploaded to Getty ten years ago and never imagined their sunset photo would train a model that puts them out of work?
Key Takeaway: 800 artists launched “Stealing Isn’t Innovation” to fight AI companies training on creative work without permission, warning about AI slop degrading content quality while some industry players simultaneously cut licensing deals with the same tech companies they’re criticizing.