Nintendo Issues Official Statement in Response to Generative AI Claim, as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Calls Sora 2 Copyrighted Character Videos 'Interactive Fan Fiction'
OpenAI has vowed to give copyright holders “more granular control” over character generation after its Sora 2 app produced a flood of videos that depicted copyrighted characters — including those owned by Nintendo.
Following the launch of Sora 2, social media was awash with videos featuring licensed characters, such as Mario, Pikachu, and an array of other Pokémon.
“The Dark Knight” pic.twitter.com/2Hk0vlJBKJ
— Justine Moore (@venturetwins) October 1, 2025
According to a Wall Street Journal report published ahead of the launch of Sora 2, OpenAI had already begun contacting movie studios and other intellectual property owners to offer them the chance to retroactively opt out of their fictional characters being available within the app's AI videos. That differed from the approach OpenAI said it would take to using the likeness of a recognizable public figure, which required that person to opt in.
However, on Saturday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a blog post that the company had been “taking feedback” from users, rights holders and other groups, and would make changes as a result.
He said rights holders would be given more “granular control” over the generation of characters, similar to how people can opt in to share their own likeness in the app, but with “additional controls.”
“We are hearing from a lot of rightsholders who are very excited for this new kind of ‘interactive fan fiction’ and think this new kind of engagement will accrue a lot of value to them, but want the ability to specify how their characters can be used (including not at all).”
Altman said OpenAI would “let rightsholders decide how to proceed” and that there would be some “edge cases of generations” that get through the platform’s guardrails that should not.
He said the company would also “have to somehow make money” from video generation, and already the platform was seeing people generating much more than expected per user. He said this could mean payment to rights holders who grant permission for their characters to be generated.
“The exact model will take some trial and error to figure out, but we plan to start very soon,” Altman said. “Our hope is that the new kind of engagement is even more valuable than the revenue share, but of course we want both to be valuable.”
He added there would be a high rate of change, similar to the early ChatGPT days, and there would be “some good decisions and some missteps.”
Tellingly, Altman pointed out the situation in Japan, saying: “In particular, we'd like to acknowledge the remarkable creative output of Japan — we are struck by how deep the connection between users and Japanese content is!”
Altman’s statement comes as Nintendo took the unusual step of issuing an official statement seemingly in response to comments from Satoshi Asano, a member of Japan’s House of Representatives. In a deleted social media post he subsequently apologized for, Asano accused Nintendo of “avoiding using generative AI to protect its IP” and "engaging in lobbying activities with the government" over the increased use of generative AI in the gaming industry.
Nintendo denied this, but did warn it would take “necessary actions against infringement of our intellectual property rights.”
“Contrary to recent discussions on the internet, Nintendo has not had any contact with the Japanese government about generative AI,” Nintendo said. “Whether generative AI is involved or not, we will continue to take necessary actions against infringement of our intellectual property rights.”
One Sora 2 video viewed by CNBC showed Sam Altman standing in a field with several Pokémon characters, where he says: “I hope Nintendo doesn’t sue us.”
As CNBC pointed out, Disney and Universal have sued the AI image creator Midjourney, alleging that the company improperly used and distributed AI-generated characters from their movies. Disney also sent a cease and desist letter to Character.AI, warning the startup to stop using its copyrighted characters without authorization.
“A lot of the videos that people are going to generate of these cartoon characters are going to infringe copyright,” Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford Law School, told CNBC. “OpenAI is opening itself up to quite a lot of copyright lawsuits by doing this.”
Speaking to IGN last week, business lawyer and creator of the Virtual Legality podcast Richard Hoeg said the legality of OpenAI’s actions wasn't yet clear.
"In short, we don't have a definitive answer yet," he said. "There are indications in some quarters that training on protected materials is likely going to be deemed legal so long as the materials themselves were acquired for some lawful purpose (and not pirated). But on the output side, the Disney/Dreamworks lawsuit makes some good arguments for why/how the law should expect these platforms to police prompts for infringing requests, especially if they are already policing for something else (porn, bigotry, etc.). But all of those are still just arguments, not settled law.”
Hoeg continued: "The law moves slowly, far slower than technology, which is why you see these tech companies racing ahead of it a bit. My best guess is that OpenAI is probably going to be okay long term on the training sets they used (assuming they weren't pirated), and that the 'opt out of training' option therefore won't do much of anything. Where they really need to concern themselves is on the output side and/or if they are marketing their software's abilities with protected content themselves."
IGN has contacted Nintendo and The Pokémon Company for comment.
Last month, the famously litigious The Pokémon Company formally responded to the use of Pokémon TV hero Ash Ketchum and the series' theme tune by the Department of Homeland Security, as part of a video showing people being arrested and handcuffed by law enforcement agents. "Our company was not involved in the creation or distribution of this content," a spokesperson told IGN, "and permission was not granted for the use of our intellectual property."
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
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