As stated by Deadline, The Writers Guild of America spoke on how Hollywood studios have violated the Minimum Basic Agreement by not using copyrighted works to “train” AI models. This was a fragment of preparations that were set in order after the writer’s strike.

Deadline states that a guild letter released on Thursday stated that Apple, Meta, Salesforce and other tech companies have “looted the studios’ intellectual property — a vast reserve of works created by generations of union labor— to train their artificial intelligence systems.” The letter also stated that the studio has done  “nothing to stop this theft.” The letter was addressed to Amazon MGM Studios, the CEOs of Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount Global and Sony. Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global declined to comment on the issue.

Per Deadline, The written statement was a response to an Atlantic article that confirmed utilization of thousands of TV shows and movies to create a data set that major tech companies make use of in order to develop their own AI structure. The letter was in response to The WGA alerts studios that the collective bargain agreement requires defending their copyrights as a representative of their writers.

“It’s time for the studios to come off the sidelines. After this industry has spent decades fighting piracy, it cannot stand idly by while tech companies steal full libraries of content for their own financial gain,” the letter ended. “The studios should take immediate legal action against any company that has used our members’ works to train AI systems.”

Deadline will be updating the article if the rest of the relevant streamers and studios care to comment about the letter written by the guild, which can be accessed here. Previously stated by mxdwn in September 2023, The Writer’s Guild of America ended the writers strike that lasted 148 and a new contract was established which prohibited AI from being used in literary and source material.