Studio Ghibli and other major Japanese publishers are taking a stand against OpenAI's unauthorized use of their copyrighted content for AI training. The Japan Content Overseas Distribution Association sent a formal letter demanding the AI giant stop using their intellectual property without permission, escalating international copyright tensions around generative AI.
The creative empire behind Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro just drew a line in the digital sand. Studio Ghibli and dozens of other Japanese publishers are demanding OpenAI stop feeding their copyrighted content into its AI training pipeline without permission, according to a formal letter sent by Japan's Content Overseas Distribution Association last week.
The timing isn't coincidental. As OpenAI's Sora video generator rolls out to more users, the ability to create Studio Ghibli-style content has become almost trivially easy. When ChatGPT's image generator launched in March, "Ghiblifying" photos became such a viral trend that even CEO Sam Altman joined in, changing his X profile picture to an AI-generated version of himself in the studio's signature style.
"Grind for a decade trying to help make superintelligence to cure cancer or whatever," Altman tweeted in March, "wake up one day to hundreds of messages: 'look i made you into a twink ghibli style haha.'" The self-deprecating humor masks a serious legal challenge brewing across the Pacific.
CODA's letter represents more than just another copyright complaint - it's a direct challenge to OpenAI's fundamental business model. The AI company has operated on an "ask forgiveness, not permission" philosophy when it comes to training data, scraping vast swaths of the internet to build its models first and dealing with legal challenges later. That approach has already drawn fire from Nintendo, the estate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and countless other creators whose work can be eerily recreated by OpenAI's tools.
But Japan's copyright framework creates a different battlefield entirely. "Under Japan's copyright system, prior permission is generally required for the use of copyrighted works, and there is no system allowing one to avoid liability for infringement through subsequent objections," CODA wrote in their letter. This contrasts sharply with the murky legal landscape in the US, where copyright law hasn't been meaningfully updated since 1976.
