Lionsgate signs deal to train AI model on its movies and shows

AI startup Runway has made a sanction for itself gathering generative models seemingly trained connected unlicensed content from astir the internet. Now the institution has signed a woody with Lionsgate that volition springiness it entree to the studio’s monolithic portfolio of films and TV shows.

Today, Lionsgate — the workplace down films similar the John Wick and Hunger Games franchises — announced that it is partnering with Runway to make a new, customized video procreation exemplary intended to assistance “filmmakers, directors and different originative endowment augment their work.”

In a connection astir the deal, Lionsgate’s vice seat Michael Burns described it arsenic a way towards creating “capital-efficient contented instauration opportunities” for the studio, which sees the exertion arsenic “a large instrumentality for augmenting, enhancing and supplementing our existent operations.” Burns besides insisted that “several of our filmmakers are already excited astir its imaginable applications to their pre-production and post-production process.”

Runway’s co-founder and CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela echoed Burns’ sentiment astir the caller model’s usefulness arsenic an augmentation tool, and said that the company’s extremity is to springiness filmmakers “new ways of bringing their stories to life.”

Specific details astir the woody — similar whether originative teams volition beryllium compensated if / erstwhile their projects are utilized arsenic grooming worldly for the exemplary — are presently scant. But arsenic The Hollywood Reporter notes, the imaginable of being capable to support accumulation costs down could person been 1 of the large selling points for Lionsgate, a workplace known for sticking to smaller budgets compared to different amusement outfits.

Those concerns were portion of what led to California politician Gavin Newsom signing 2 SAG-AFTRA-backed bills earlier this week that volition assistance performers and their estates much power implicit however and erstwhile their digitally-created likenesses tin beryllium utilized by studios. And aboriginal this month, Newsom could precise good extremity up signing into instrumentality SB 1047, different portion of hotly-contested authorities that would marque AI developers liable for the “critical harms” caused by their products.

(We reached retired to SAG-AFTRA for remark astir Lionsgate and Runway’s partnership, but did not perceive backmost successful clip for publishing.)