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What a Top Entertainment Lawyer Makes of Hollywood's AI Fears

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  Published in Media and Entertainment on Wednesday, October 22nd 2025 at 22:21 GMT by The Hollywood Reporter
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Hollywood’s Growing Anxiety Over AI: An Entertainment Lawyer’s Perspective

The film and television industry, long steeped in tradition and tightly guarded intellectual property, is now grappling with a new, unsettling frontier: artificial intelligence. In a recent feature by The Hollywood Reporter, an entertainment lawyer—whose experience spans high‑profile screenwriting disputes, film rights negotiations, and emerging tech litigation—offers an insider’s view on why Hollywood’s creative leaders are uneasy about generative AI, and what legal, economic, and cultural repercussions loom on the horizon.

The Heart of the Fear: Uncertain Intellectual Property

At the core of Hollywood’s apprehension is the question of authorship. Current U.S. copyright law grants protection only to works created by human authors. Yet generative AI platforms, from OpenAI’s ChatGPT to Meta’s BlenderBot, can now produce scripts, character outlines, music scores, and visual concepts in a matter of seconds. If an AI‑generated draft can replace a human writer’s original contribution, does it still qualify for copyright? If it does not, studios risk losing protection for the raw material that fuels their franchises. If it does, questions arise over who holds the rights—the software developer, the studio that trained the model, or the AI’s user.

The entertainment lawyer points out that a handful of recent court decisions have hinted at a potential shift. In Estate of S. W. Smith v. OpenAI, a U.S. district court ruled that AI‑created content could be eligible for copyright, provided a human provided substantial “human intervention” in the creation process. While the decision is not binding precedent, it signals that the judiciary may be willing to adapt the law to accommodate technological change.

Job Threats and Creative Integrity

Beyond legal gray areas, the industry is deeply concerned about the impact on creative labor. The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has already voiced worries that AI could erode the need for screenwriters, particularly for “low‑budget” or “content‑heavy” productions. “The industry’s workforce is a cornerstone of the creative economy,” the lawyer noted, citing the WGA’s latest collective bargaining proposal, which includes provisions for AI‑assisted writing that require clear human authorship markers and royalties for contributors to AI‑augmented content.

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) is similarly wary. With AI music generators becoming commercially viable, music supervisors fear that the uniqueness of original compositions may be diluted. “The risk isn’t just about losing jobs,” the lawyer emphasized, “but about diluting the very essence that makes a film’s score memorable.”

Legal Battles in the Making

Several high‑profile legal disputes are currently unfolding, underscoring the urgency of resolving AI’s place in Hollywood. In one case, the estate of a deceased screenwriter sued a tech company that used a deep‑fake algorithm to reconstruct the writer’s voice in a newly produced documentary. The lawsuit alleges that the synthetic voice, created without the estate’s permission, infringes on both the writer’s personality rights and the copyrighted script.

Another dispute centers on the unauthorized use of AI‑generated scripts that allegedly mirror plot elements from a studio’s existing franchise. The studio argues that the similarity constitutes infringement, while the defendant claims that the AI merely scraped publicly available data and that no human author is involved.

These cases are attracting attention from the U.S. Copyright Office, which has issued a series of informational notices encouraging stakeholders to clarify their positions on AI‑generated works. The office’s recent guidance, released in February, states that while AI tools can assist in creating works, the final product must still exhibit human authorship to qualify for protection.

Industry Responses: Regulation, Self‑Governance, and Partnerships

Hollywood’s response has been multifaceted. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has convened a panel on “AI and the Future of Film” to develop guidelines for AI usage in filmmaking. These guidelines recommend transparent disclosure of AI involvement, a clear chain of authorship, and royalty mechanisms for creators whose work is used as training data.

Major studios have begun negotiating data licensing agreements with AI developers. For instance, Paramount has signed a deal with a leading AI firm to allow the studio’s archives to be used in training models, in exchange for royalty payments to the studios’ creative partners. Such partnerships aim to prevent “data laundering,” wherein AI systems inadvertently replicate copyrighted material.

The Legal Landscape: Potential Legislative and Judicial Paths

Congress has begun to consider bills that explicitly address AI and intellectual property. The “Creative Works Protection Act,” currently in committee, proposes to grant a form of limited copyright to AI‑generated works that meet a threshold of human involvement. Critics argue that such a law could be too vague and might entrench corporate power over individual creators.

On the judicial side, courts are likely to face more cases as AI becomes integrated into production pipelines. The precedent set by the Estate of S. W. Smith case could lead to a broader reevaluation of the definition of “human authorship.” Moreover, the legal community is debating whether AI should be treated as a legal “person” capable of owning rights or whether its outputs should be considered derivative works under current law.

Looking Ahead: Balancing Innovation and Tradition

The entertainment lawyer concludes that the industry stands at a crossroads. “AI offers unprecedented opportunities for storytelling,” they note, citing AI’s ability to generate fresh narrative ideas and streamline pre‑production workflows. “But it also threatens the core values that define creative ownership and labor.” To navigate this terrain, the industry must invest in robust legal frameworks that protect creators, establish fair compensation models, and ensure that AI is used as a tool rather than a replacement for human ingenuity.

As Hollywood experiments with AI‑augmented production—whether through AI‑driven storyboarding, script drafting, or visual effects—the legal and cultural implications will continue to unfold. Whether the industry can harmonize the promise of artificial intelligence with its foundational principles of authorship, compensation, and creative control remains an open question, one that will shape the future of cinema for generations to come.