Members of Hollywood’s liberal elite promised that they would flee the country if Donald Trump was elected president.
And for the most part, some made good on that promise.
In November, a pair of high-profile, anti-Trump celebs claimed they left the U.S. because of Trump.
Actress Eva Longoria claimed she left the United States due in large part to president-elect Donald Trump.
Shortly therafter, it was reported that former daytime talk show host and comedian Ellen DeGeneres reportedly moved into a home in rural England with her wife Portia De Rossi following Trump’s victory.
And just last week, reports of Rosie O’Donnell, a longtime rival of President Donald Trump, appeared to have shown that she also fled the United States and moved abroad based on recent social media posts that showed her driving on the “wrong side of the road.”
But as quickly as Hollywood’s liberal elite claimed they’d bolt, they are now begging Trump — their nemesis — for help.
According to reports from multiple entertainment outlets, celebrities like Ben Stiller, Paul McCartney and Ron Howard were among the over 400 Hollywood stars and industry workers who signed an open letter last week urging President Donald Trump to protect artificial intelligence copyright rules.
“We firmly believe that America’s global AI leadership must not come at the expense of our essential creative industries,” the letter, addressed to Trump’s Office of Science and Technology Policy and shared by entertainment publications Deadline and Variety.
“America’s arts and entertainment industry supports over 2.3M American jobs with over $229Bn in wages annually, while providing the foundation for American democratic influence and soft power abroad. But 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 was submitted as part of comments on the Trump administration’s U.S. AI Action Plan and stems from recent news that tech giants OpenAI and Google recently put forth their own submissions to the Office of Science and Technology asking their respective companies to be able to train their models on copyrighted material.
“The federal government can both secure Americans’ freedom to learn from AI and avoid forfeiting our AI lead to the PRC by preserving American AI models’ ability to learn from copyrighted material,” OpenAI’s letter states.
Google’s states, “Balanced copyright rules, such as fair use and text-and-data mining exceptions, have been critical to enabling AI systems to learn from prior knowledge and publicly available data, unlocking scientific and social advances. These exceptions allow for the use of copyrighted, publicly available material for AI training without significantly impacting rightsholders and avoid often highly unpredictable, imbalanced, and lengthy negotiations with data holders during model development or scientific experimentation.”
Hollywood’s letter countered with:
“There is no reason to weaken or eliminate the copyright protections that have helped America flourish. Not when AI companies can use our copyrighted material by simply doing what the law requires: negotiating appropriate licenses with copyright holders — just as every other industry does.
“Access to America’s creative catalog of films, writing, video content, and music is not a matter of national security. They do not require a government-mandated exemption from existing U.S. copyright law.
“For nearly 250 years, U.S. copyright law has balanced creator’s rights with the needs of the public, creating the world’s most vibrant creative economy. We recommend that the American AI Action Plan uphold existing copyright frameworks to maintain the strength of America’s creative and knowledge industries, as well as American cultural influence abroad.”
At this month’s SXSW festival, powerful Hollywood representation organization SAG-AFTRA held a panel addressing the continued effect of AI on the movie industry.
“The copyright issue is a very big deal to the studios, and, for our folks, it’s been good, in that [employers] do really want to hear from our people because if something isn’t [protected under] copyright — if anybody can make Superman’s suit, and you don’t own it anymore — that’s very bad,” Vanessa Holtgrewe, IATSE international vice president & assistant department director of motion picture and television production, said in a press release on the union’s website.