Jennifer Hudson, The Roots, Jimmy Jam Among 800 Hollywood Creatives Pushing Anti-AI Campaign

Hollywood’s top creatives are rallying against AI models that exploit copyrighted works.

Jennifer Hudson, The Roots, Jill Scott, and Jimmy Jam are among 800 Hollywood creatives in music, film, and television backing a campaign against the use of copyrighted works in AI models.

On Jan. 22, the Human Artistry Campaign launched the “Stealing Isn’t Innovation” initiative, protesting tech companies’ alleged mass use of human-created works to develop tools that could compete with real creatives, Deadline reports. Signatories include actors Scarlett Johansson and Cate Blanchett, authors like Brad Meltzer, and musicians such as Chaka Khan, CeCe Winans, and Yolanda Adams.

Led by the Human Artistry Campaign—a coalition of Hollywood groups including the RIAA, SAG-AFTRA, the Recording Academy, and the Directors Guild of America, with the Motion Picture Association being notably absent—the initiative emphasizes the need to protect the creative community. The campaign accuses major tech companies of using American creators’ work to build AI tools without permission or regard for copyright law.

“Big Tech is trying to change the law so they can keep stealing American artistry to build their AI businesses—without authorization and without paying the people who did the work. That is wrong; it’s un-American, and it’s theft on a grand scale,” the campaign states. “The following creators all agree. Do you? If so, come join us.”

The campaign claims that AI companies’ use of copyrighted works to train their models constitutes a “massive rip-off,” threatening U.S. jobs, economic growth, and the global “soft power” backed by the nation’s creative industries. Rather than using works without permission, the organization wants tech companies to license content and allow creators to opt out of AI training.

“Real innovation comes from the human motivation to change our lives. It moves opportunity forward while driving economic growth and creating jobs,” Human Artistry Campaign senior advisor Dr. Moiya McTier said in a statement. “But AI companies are endangering artists’ careers while exploiting their practiced craft, using human art and other creative works without authorization to amass billions in corporate earnings.”

So far, few Hollywood companies have licensed content for generative AI. The largest deal came in December, when Disney signed a three-year agreement with OpenAI to bring some of its iconic characters to the video-generation tool Sora. Earlier, Sora 2.0 sparked controversy by producing characters from Bob’s Burgers, Pokémon, Grand Theft Auto, and SpongeBob SquarePants. The company initially said rights holders could opt out, but reversed that stance days later.