Paul McCartney, Ava DuVernay, Cate Blanchett, Natasha Lyonne and over 400 other entertainment industry figures have written to the White House calling on the Trump administration to resist efforts by artificial intelligence companies to weaken copyright rules. The open letter, addressed to the Office of Science and Technology, argues that America's global AI leadership must not come at the expense of its creative industries.
The letter highlights that the US arts and entertainment sector supports 2.3 million jobs and generates more than $229 billion in wages annually. It warns that AI companies are seeking to undermine this economic and cultural strength by weakening copyright protections for the films, television series, artworks, writing, music and voices used to train AI models, which are central to multi-billion-dollar corporate valuations.
The signatories include Lilly Wachowski, Alfonso Cuarón, Ben Stiller, Guillermo del Toro, Mark Ruffalo, Cynthia Erivo, and many others. They express opposition to proposals from OpenAI and Google, which recently submitted briefs to the White House calling for copyright and intellectual property workarounds. The letter states that these companies are arguing for a special government exemption to freely exploit America's creative and knowledge industries, despite having substantial revenues.
The correspondence comes as the Trump administration develops an AI Action Plan, which was open for public comment until 15 March. The Hollywood group met that deadline and plans to submit additional signatures. The letter emphasises that US copyright law has balanced creators' rights with public needs for nearly 250 years, creating the world's most vibrant creative economy, and that the AI Action Plan must uphold existing frameworks.
