The Overseas Content Distribution Association (CODA) is a Japanese anti-piracy organization that represents numerous media and video game companiesincluding Square Enix, Cygames, Bandai Namco and FromSoftware owner Kadokawa Corporation, have submitted a written request to OpenAI demanding that the US company stop using its members' content to train models such as Sora 2.
CODA was created in 2002 at the direction of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Agency for Cultural Affairs to “promote the development of Japanese content abroad and take measures to combat piracy.”
“Japan's proud content, including music, films, anime, broadcast programs, video games and publishing, plays an important role in strengthening the country's international presence and economic growth,” reads the explainer on the CODA website. “As digital technologies become more pervasive, it becomes even more important to protect Japanese content from increasingly insidious copyright infringements and promote the development of the content industry.”
CODA claims OpenAI may be infringing copyrights after confirming that a large number of results generated by Sora 2's video generation model are “highly reminiscent of Japanese content or images.”
“CODA has determined that this is the result of using Japanese content as machine learning data. In cases, as in the case of Sora 2, where certain copyrighted works are reproduced or similarly generated as output, CODA considers that the act of replication in the machine learning process may constitute copyright infringement.” reads the statement (first noticed by Automaton).
“Furthermore, according to media reports, it has been stated that Sora 2 is responding through an opt-out system based on requests from copyright holders. However, under the Japanese copyright system, prior permission is generally required for the use of copyrighted works, and there is no system to avoid liability for infringement through subsequent objections.”
CODA is now demanding that OpenAI prevent its members' content from being used without permission to facilitate the operation of Sora 2. It also asked the company to “sincerely respond” to CODA members' claims and requests regarding copyright infringement.
Japanese companies are growing dissatisfied with OpenAI's use of copyrighted material.
OpenAI launched Sora 2 on September 30, 2025. Just days later, the company's CEO Sam Altman said he wanted to give rights holders “more granular control” over the creation of characters.
In a blog post titled “Sora Update #1”.” He said OpenAI intends to allow copyright holders to dictate how Sora can use their characters – “including not using them at all.” However, he also said that OpenAI hopes to make the technology so attractive that many people will be happy to see their characters.
Notably, Altman also took the time to acknowledge Japan's “outstanding creative achievements.” “We are amazed at how deep the connection is between users and Japanese content,” he added.
OpenAI has been hit with a number of lawsuits in recent years, with many creators taking issue with the company's “ask for forgiveness, not permission” approach to cleaning up the Internet.
Just last week, a judge allowed a consolidated class action lawsuit from a number of authors, including Game of Thrones screenwriter George R.R. Martin after they claimed that OpenAI and Microsoft violated their copyright by using their legally protected work to train large language models without permission. Thank you, Business Insider.
OpenAI has been candid about how its ChatGPT conversational model was trained on information “publicly available on the Internet,” as well as “information that we partner with third parties to access” and “information that our users, instructors, and researchers provide or generate.”
There has been less transparency about how Sora 2's preparation went. As The Washington Post reported in September.The company did not specify which videos were used to train Sora, although the project's co-lead previously explained that OpenAI combined “public and licensed data.”
In an effort to understand what kind of content OpenAI could use, The Washington Post used Sora to create hundreds of videos that showed the tool was capable of playing Netflix movies and TV shows, video games like Minecraft and Civilization, and popular Marvel characters like Iron Man and Spider-Man.
Last month, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) responded to the launch of Sora 2 by reiterating that the responsibility for preventing Sora 2 infringement lies with OpenAI, not copyright holders.
“OpenAI needs to take immediate and decisive action to address this issue,” said MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin. “Well-established copyright law protects the rights of creators and applies here.”
