Paul McCartney, Cynthia Erivo Among Celebrities Asking Trump for AI Protections

The entertainment industry's battle with the AI industry continued on Tuesday, with over 400 entertainers—including Mark Ruffalo, Paul McCartney, Cynthia Erivo, Cate Blanchett, and Chris Rock—signed an open letter urging the Trump administration to uphold existing copyright protections against AI training practices.

The letter comes after Google and OpenAI asked that such laws be relaxed. In February, the Trump Administration called for public comments on an artificial intelligence action plan that the White House said would define “priority policy actions” regarding the U.S. position in the global AI industry.

“We firmly believe that America’s global AI leadership must not come at the expense of our essential creative industries,” the letter said. “America’s arts and entertainment industry supports over 2.3 million American jobs with over $229 billion in wages annually, while providing the foundation for American democratic influence and soft power abroad.”

The letter, signed by a consortium of entertainment industry luminaries—including Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, actresses Aubrey Plaza and Carrie Coon, and Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi—was a response to fair use proposals by OpenAI and Google.

In a statement to Decrypt, a Google spokesperson emphasized that the existing fair use framework provides a solid legal foundation for innovation.

“We support America’s existing fair use framework, and we’re confident that current copyright law enables AI innovation,” the spokesperson said.

Decrypt also reached out to OpenAI for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Critics argue that broadening the U.S. fair use doctrine—which permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder—to cover AI developers would threaten the entertainment industry and other sectors.

“Make no mistake: This issue goes well beyond the entertainment industry, as the right to train AI on all copyright-protected content impacts all of America’s knowledge industries,” the letter said. “When tech and AI companies demand unfettered access to all data and information, they’re not just threatening movies, books, and music, but the work of all writers, publishers, photographers, scientists, and all other professionals who work with computers and generate intellectual property.”

OpenAI noted SB-1047, the California bill introduced in 2024 by State Senator Scott Wiener, proposing that a sandbox be created to provide liability protections from “state-based regulations that focus on frontier model security.”

Decrypt contacted Wiener’s officer for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.

“This will help keep the U.S. public and private sectors competitive by allowing AI companies of all sizes to pursue bleeding-edge AI technology, free from the regulatory uncertainty created by some state-based liability regimes,” the company wrote.

Passed in August, SB-1047 aimed to regulate the development and deployment of advanced artificial intelligence—often referred to as frontier models—to mitigate potential catastrophic risks associated with misuse.

If OpenAI and Google successfully have the fair use doctrine augmented to cover AI developers, it could go a long way in helping to win the legal battles writers, artists, and media outlets have mounted against the industry since AI surged into the mainstream in 2022.

Edited by James Rubin