OpenAI’s text-to-video app Sora has surpassed one million downloads in less than five days—faster than ChatGPT’s initial trajectory—despite an invite-only rollout limited to North America. The app climbed to the top of Apple’s U.S. App Store as users flooded social platforms with 10-second AI-generated clips, including depictions of recently deceased public figures, drawing a backlash from families and raising fresh questions over likeness rights and consent. OpenAI said there are free-speech interests in portraying historical figures but indicated it will let authorized representatives of recently deceased public figures opt out. Sora’s growth lands amid escalating legal pressure on AI firms over copyrighted training data, highlighted by Anthropic’s $1.5 billion settlement with authors. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company is developing more granular controls for rights holders and exploring revenue-sharing, moves that could shape the commercial model for AI-generated media as regulators and rights owners scrutinize the technology’s impact.
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