Japanese trade body raises copyright concerns with OpenAI
04 Nov 2025, 02:42 PMCODA's letter to OpenAI highlights the ongoing conflict between generative AI companies and publishers.
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Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA), a Japanese trade organisation, has written to OpenAI to stop training its AI models without the permission of its members' content.
CODA, which represents publishers like Studio Ghibli, noted that a large portion of the content produced by OpenAI's updated video generator Sora 2 resembles Japanese content or images.
"CODA has determined that this is the result of using Japanese content as machine learning data," it added.
It further said that under Japan's copyright system prior permission is generally required for the use of copyrighted works. "There is no system allowing one to avoid liability for infringement through subsequent objections," it added.
CODA's letter to OpenAI highlights the ongoing conflict between generative AI companies and publishers, and where the line should be drawn while using images of historical figures.
Earlier this month, OpenAI paused generation of videos depicting civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr on Sora 2 after a request of Dr. King's estate.
In a sort of positive news for startups like OpenAI, recently, US federal judge William Alsup found that Anthropic did not violate the law by training its AI on copyrighted books.
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