CAA Backs NYT Against OpenAI as De Niro, Roberts and Madonna Sign On

CAA has waded into the copyright war between OpenAI and the New York Times — and it brought the A-list. The mega-agency filed an amicus brief on October 20 backing the publishers and authors suing the ChatGPT maker, per Deadline, arguing bluntly that "technical silence is not legal consent." Translation: training on creative work without a deal isn't permission.

The signatory list reads like a festival lineup. Robert De Niro, Julia Roberts, Madonna, Scarlett Johansson, Helen Mirren, Emma Thompson, Anne Hathaway, Ariana DeBose, Rosario Dawson, Dan Levy, Vince Gilligan, Ron Howard, Rian Johnson, Olivia Wilde, Paul Feig, Greg Berlanti, Bette Midler and Dave Eggers all put their names down. Cate Blanchett, Steven Soderbergh and Nick Hexum joined through co-plaintiff groups, alongside organizations including the Music Artists Coalition, the National Association of Voice Actors and the Stan Lee Foundation.

CAA chief Bryan Lourd didn't mince words. "This case is about far more than one newspaper or one technology company," he told Deadline. "It is about the fundamental relationship between technological progress and creative rights, and who determines the value of creative work." He added that the agency believes in AI's promise, but that it "must be built with artists, not at their expense, and grounded in consent, control, and compensation."

OpenAI's defense is familiar: fair use. The company says the principle is "fair to creators, necessary for innovators, and critical for US competitiveness" — and it has the backing of President Trump's DOJ, according to Deadline. OpenAI has also argued that striking licensing deals at this stage of the technology's evolution would be prohibitively expensive. The CAA-led brief swats that down, saying the mechanisms to manage multi-rightsholder transactions are already well-established and are being adapted for AI across both creative and tech sectors. In short: "Licensing at scale is not inherently impossible."

CAA isn't new to this fight. The agency has rolled out AI-focused efforts including CAA Vault, and its chief compliance officer Tammy Brandt noted in September that "cultural change happens a long time before political and legal change does." The agency's brief was filed by Bass, Berry & Sims PLC, representing CAA along with the Human Consent Foundation, Writer, Inc. and the Creators Coalition on Artificial Intelligence.

The filing lands in a case that's nearly two years old and heating up fast. Rival agency WME weighed in with its own brief last week, calling for ethical AI use with proper compensation and authorization for talent. Earlier, George R.R. Martin, John Grisham, Sarah Silverman, Michael Connelly, Jonathan Franzen and Jodi Picoult all objected to their work being used without payment. On October 29, SAG-AFTRA, the American Federation of Musicians and the Writers Guild of America East and West filed a joint brief accusing OpenAI of "appropriating the work of middle- and working-class people to develop their technology." Your serve, Sam.