Ben Stiller, Paul McCartney and more than 400 Hollywood celebrities send complaint letter against Google, OpenAI to the US government

More than 400 Hollywood celebrities, including Ben Stiller, Mark Ruffalo and Paul McCartney, have submitted an open letter to the President Donald Trump administration opposing efforts by OpenAI and Google to weaken copyright protections for AI training.
The letter, sent to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy this weekend, directly challenges recent proposals from the tech giants that argue US copyright law should allow AI companies to train their systems on copyrighted works without permission or compensation to rights holders.
“We firmly believe that America’s global AI leadership must not come at the expense of our essential creative industries,” states the letter, which was signed by numerous high-profile actors, directors, writers, and musicians including Cate Blanchett, Guillermo del Toro, and Aubrey Plaza.
The creative community’s response comes after OpenAI and Google submitted proposals suggesting that more relaxed copyright rules would strengthen America’s competitive edge in AI development against countries like China.
The Hollywood signatories strongly reject this premise, arguing that “AI companies are asking 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 at the core of multi-billion dollar corporate valuations.”
The letter emphasizes that the entertainment industry supports over 2.3 million American jobs and contributes $229 billion in wages annually while providing “the foundation for American democratic influence and soft power abroad.”
The signatories point out that tech giants like “Google (valued at $2Tn) and OpenAI (valued at over $157Bn) are arguing for a special government exemption so they can freely exploit America’s creative and knowledge industries, despite their substantial revenues and available funds.”
The letter warns that the issue extends beyond entertainment, affecting “all of America’s knowledge industries” including the work of “writers, publishers, photographers, scientists, architects, engineers, designers, doctors, software developers and all other professionals.”
“America didn’t become a global cultural powerhouse by accident,” the letter concludes. “Our success stems directly from our fundamental respect for IP and copyright that rewards creative risk-taking by talented and hardworking Americans from every state and territory.”
The letter was submitted ahead of a midnight deadline on Saturday, with signatories indicating they plan to continue gathering signatures for an updated submission.