In a sweeping show of unity, more than 400 of Hollywood’s top creatives—spanning Oscar winners, showrunners, chart-topping musicians, and below-the-line talent—have signed a letter to the White House demanding one thing: don’t let tech giants like Google and OpenAI rewrite U.S. copyright law under the guise of AI innovation.

The open letter, which counts signatories like Ben Stiller, Mark Ruffalo, Cate Blanchett, Ava DuVernay, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Guillermo del Toro, Paul McCartney, Ron Howard, and Taika Waititi, was submitted in response to the Trump administration’s forthcoming U.S. AI Action Plan. The letter calls out a growing push from AI companies to exempt themselves from copyright licensing when training their models—effectively giving them a free pass to scrape and profit from decades of creative labor without compensation or consent.

“AI companies are asking to undermine America’s 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 multibillion-dollar corporate valuations,” the letter reads.

This growing backlash follows formal policy requests by OpenAI and Google, both of whom claim that training AI on copyrighted materials constitutes “fair use” and should be protected to maintain U.S. leadership in AI development. But critics argue these calls for “unfettered access” to creative works under the banner of national security are a thinly veiled attempt to dodge paying artists for their intellectual property.

And the stakes are massive. Together, America’s entertainment industries support 2.3 million jobs and generate over $229 billion in annual wages. At risk is not only the future of fair pay and ownership for working creatives—but also the cultural capital that fuels Hollywood’s global influence.

“This issue goes well beyond the film industry,” the letter emphasizes. “When AI companies demand access to all data and information, they’re not just threatening movies and music, but the work of all writers, publishers, scientists, architects, engineers, and creators who power America’s innovation economy.”

Companies like Asteria, co-founded by Natasha Lyonne and Bryn Mooser, are offering a different path forward—building AI models trained ethically on licensed content, with transparency and respect for creator rights. But their approach is at odds with current lobbying efforts from the biggest AI firms, who are pushing to bypass licensing altogether.

For an industry still recovering from the 2023 dual strikes, this is a red line moment. The creative community is making it clear: American leadership in AI can—and must—coexist with the fundamental protections that fuel creativity.

Hollywood didn’t become the epicenter of global storytelling by accident. Its rise was built on a foundation of intellectual property laws that reward bold, original thinking. Dismantling those laws for tech companies chasing trillion-dollar valuations would mark a seismic shift not just in entertainment, but in how we define creative ownership in the digital age.