(qlmbusinessnews.com . Sat 11th Oct, 2025) London, UK —
Sora App Controversy: Zelda Williams Speaks Out Against AI-Generated Videos
OpenAI has announced that Sora, its groundbreaking text-to-video artificial intelligence tool, has surpassed a million downloads in under five days, setting a new record by outperforming ChatGPT's initial launch figures.
The application, which has climbed to the top of the Apple App Store rankings in the US, is capable of producing ten-second videos that appear remarkably realistic from straightforward text descriptions.
Bill Peebles, the head of Sora, revealed the impressive download figures on X, highlighting the remarkable “surging growth” of the app, which, for the time being, is exclusively available to invited users in North America.
Despite its popularity, Sora's approach to copyrighted content and its portrayal of deceased public figures have ignited a wave of online criticism.
The ease with which users can share their generated videos on social media platforms has led to a flood of content, including controversial AI-created videos of late celebrities such as Michael Jackson and Tupac Shakur.
Zelda Williams, daughter of the dearly missed US actor and comedian Robin Williams, who passed away in 2019, recently appealed to the public to refrain from sending her AI-generated clips of her father, an incident that has been linked to Sora's rising fame.
The debate over AI-generated videos of deceased celebrities has intensified, with an OpenAI spokesperson telling Axios that there are “strong free speech interests” in depicting historical figures through such technology. However, the company has indicated that for recently deceased public figures, representatives have the right to request the non-use of their likenesses, although the definition of “recent” remains unclear.
The controversy extends to videos featuring characters from popular films, TV shows, and video games. A notable instance includes a deepfake of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman alongside Pokémon characters, humorously commenting on a potential lawsuit from Nintendo—a scenario reported by CNBC.
Despite no current legal action from Nintendo, the broader issue of AI-generated content using copyrighted material has seen companies like OpenAI embroiled in legal disputes. A case in point is AI firm Anthropic, which settled a class-action lawsuit for $1.5 billion (£1.11 billion) with authors claiming their work was used without permission to train AI models.
As OpenAI navigates these legal and ethical challenges, Sam Altman shared on 4 October that the company is actively learning from user and rights holder feedback, aiming to provide more control over character generation and contemplating a potential revenue-sharing model in the future.
The outcome of whether rights holders will accept Sora videos as a form of “interactive fan fiction,” as Altman suggests, or push the company toward legal confrontations, remains uncertain.
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