Alongside pay demands and streaming royalties, artificial intelligence (AI) was a prominent point of contention in the protracted Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike in Hollywood.
The strike concluded on Wednesday after 148 days of negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) trade association, whose members include Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PARA), Warner Bros Discovery Inc (NASDAQ:WBD), Sony Pictures and Universal Pictures.
Under the finalised labour deal, AI cannot “be used to undermine a writer's credit or separated rights”.
In basic terms, this means production studios cannot use the fact that AI was used in the screenwriting process to reduce a writer’s salary or amount of recognition he or she gets for the script.
Companies cannot force writers to use ChatGPT and other large-language models, though writers can if they wish on company consent.
Companies must inform writers if material has been generated by AI, and if a company uses a writer's material to train AI models, the WGA is allowed to deem that training as unlawful.
The verbatim deal terms in the Memorandum of Agreement are as follows:
- AI can’t write or rewrite literary material, and AI-generated material will not be considered source material under the MBA, meaning that AI-generated material can’t be used to undermine a writer’s credit or separated rights.
- A writer can choose to use AI when performing writing services, if the company consents and provided that the writer follows applicable company policies, but the company can’t require the writer to use AI software (e.g., ChatGPT) when performing writing services.
- The company must disclose to the writer if any materials given to the writer have been generated by AI or incorporate AI-generated material.
- The WGA reserves the right to assert that exploitation of writers’ material to train AI is prohibited by MBA or other law.