OpenAI’s text-to-video app Sora reached one million downloads in North America in under five days, a milestone achieved faster than ChatGPT, amid growing criticism over its handling of copyright and depictions of deceased public figures.
The download figures were announced by Sora boss Bill Peebles in a post on the social media platform X. Peebles described the numbers as “surging growth,” which occurred even with the app’s availability restricted to invite-only users within North America. During this initial launch period, Sora also secured the top position on the Apple App Store charts in the United States. The application functions by generating realistic-looking videos, up to ten seconds in length, based on simple text prompts provided by the user. The platform is designed to make it easy for users to post the videos they have created directly to social media.
sora hit 1M app downloads in <5 days, even faster than chatgpt did (despite the invite flow and only targeting north america!)!
team working hard to keep up with surging growth. more features and fixes to overmoderation on the way!
— Bill Peebles (@billpeeb) October 9, 2025
This rapid adoption has been accompanied by significant online criticism regarding the app’s policies on copyrighted material and its generation of images featuring deceased individuals. The app’s design facilitating easy posting has resulted in what has been described as a deluge of these videos across social feeds. Among the content generated and widely shared are depictions of high-profile deceased celebrities, including musicians Michael Jackson and Tupac Shakur. The controversy stems from the application’s capacity to create convincing representations from minimal user input.
Public reaction to this capability has been pointed. Three days ago, Zelda Williams, daughter of the actor and comic Robin Williams who died in 2014, publicly asked people to stop distributing AI-generated videos of her father. Press reports have directly linked this plea to the increasing popularity of Sora. In response to such concerns, an OpenAI spokesperson stated in an email to US news site Axios that there are “strong free speech interests” in permitting the depiction of historical figures. The spokesperson added that for public figures who are “recently deceased,” authorized persons can request that their likenesses not be used, although the company did not provide a specific definition for what timeframe constitutes “recent.”
The use of protected intellectual property extends to characters from popular films, television shows, and video games. One widely circulated deep-fake video created with Sora shows OpenAI CEO Sam Altman alongside several Pokémon characters, in which his likeness is depicted saying, “I hope Nintendo doesn’t sue us,” as reported by CNBC. Another viral deep-fake video shows an image of Altman grilling and consuming the well-known Pikachu mascot from the game series. To date, Nintendo has not publicly revealed any plans to pursue legal action against OpenAI or in relation to Sora-generated content.
The issue reflects a wider trend, as several companies developing popular generative AI systems, including OpenAI itself, are currently engaged in legal battles with creators and the rights holders of creative works. These legal disputes carry the potential for substantial financial consequences for the technology firms. As an example of the potential costs, the AI firm Anthropic recently agreed to a settlement of $1.5 billion (£1.11 bn) to resolve a class-action lawsuit. The suit was filed by authors who claimed the company had used their work without permission to train its AI models.
OpenAI has indicated it is adapting its strategy in response to these emerging issues. In a blog post dated October 4, Sam Altman wrote that the company had been “learning quickly from how people are using Sora and taking feedback from users, rights holders, and other interested groups.” Altman outlined specific future actions, stating the firm would “give rights holders more granular control over generation of characters.” He also detailed that the company has plans to implement a form of revenue-sharing arrangement with rights holders in the future. In the post, Altman suggested that videos produced by Sora could be considered a new kind of “interactive fan fiction.”
