Sam Altman · 2025-10-04
BlogSora Update #1: Rightsholder Controls and Revenue Sharing
Authors: Sam Altman
Why it matters
Many rightsholders are excited about "interactive fan fiction" as a new engagement model with their IP
Key claims
- OpenAI will give rightsholders more granular control over Sora character generation, including the option to opt out entirely
- Many rightsholders are excited about "interactive fan fiction" as a new engagement model with their IP
- User video generation volume significantly exceeded expectations, with many videos made for small audiences
- OpenAI plans to share revenue with rightsholders whose characters are generated by users
Radar summary
Summary
Sam Altman outlines two major policy changes coming to OpenAI's Sora video generation platform based on post-launch user feedback. First, OpenAI will grant rightsholders more granular control over how their characters appear in AI-generated videos, similar to but expanding beyond the opt-in model used for likeness rights. Several rightsholders have expressed enthusiasm for what Altman calls a new form of "interactive fan fiction," though they want the ability to specify exactly how characters can be used, including opting out entirely.
- OpenAI will give rightsholders more granular control over Sora character generation, including the option to opt out entirely
- Many rightsholders are excited about "interactive fan fiction" as a new engagement model with their IP
- User video generation volume significantly exceeded expectations, with many videos made for small audiences
- OpenAI plans to share revenue with rightsholders whose characters are generated by users
- The exact revenue-sharing model will require iteration and is expected to launch soon
- OpenAI acknowledges strong creative use of Japanese content on Sora
- A high rate of change is expected, comparable to the early days of ChatGPT
- Successful approaches tested in Sora will be applied consistently across OpenAI's product lineup
Source material
Full source text
We have been learning quickly from how people are using Sora and taking feedback from users, rightsholders, and other interested groups.
We of course spent a lot of time discussing this before launch, but now that we have a product out we can do more than just theorize.
We are going to make two changes soon (and many more to come).
First, we will give rightsholders more granular control over generation of characters, similar to the opt-in model for likeness but with additional controls.
We are hearing from a lot of rightsholders who are very excited for this new kind of "interactive fan fiction" and think this new kind of engagement will accrue a lot of value to them, but want the ability to specify how their characters can be used (including not at all).
We assume different people will try very different approaches and will figure out what works for them.
But we want to apply the same standard towards everyone, and let rightsholders decide how to proceed (our aim of course is to make it so compelling that many people want to).
There may be some edge cases of generations that get through that shouldn't, and getting our stack to work well will take some iteration.
In particular, we'd like to acknowledge the remarkable creative output of Japan--we are struck by how deep the connection between users and Japanese content is!
Second, we are going to have to somehow make money for video generation.
People are generating much more than we expected per user, and a lot of videos are being generated for very small audiences.
We are going to try sharing some of this revenue with rightsholders who want their characters generated by users.
The exact model will take some trial and error to figure out, but we plan to start very soon.
Our hope is that the new kind of engagement is even more valuable than the revenue share, but of course we we want both to be valuable.
Please expect a very high rate of change from us; it reminds me of the early days of ChatGPT.
We will make some good decisions and some missteps, but we will take feedback and try to fix the missteps very quickly.
We plan to do our iteration on different approaches in Sora, but then apply it consistently across our products.