ALL INPredictions
Last updated Nov 29, 2025
Prediction
Friedberg
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Friedberg @ 00:40:30Right
techai
In 2024, there will be several 'blockbuster' licensing deals in which major IP owners (e.g., Disney or similar studios) license significant portions of their content libraries for generative‑AI use (e.g., to generate on‑demand images, games, or media), creating a lucrative new revenue stream for such rights‑holders.
I think rights holders getting licensing deals for generative AI or there's going to be a couple of blockbuster deals this year... where you'll see like Disney licensed out a chunk of their library so people can generate on demand video games or content... I think we see that again with generative AI this year... So anyone that has an interesting content rights will start to license it out and get a lot of value from it.View on YouTube
Explanation

Evidence from 2024 shows multiple large, multi‑year licensing deals where major IP owners licensed substantial content archives specifically for generative‑AI training and use, creating new revenue streams:

  • News Corp–OpenAI (May 2024): News Corp granted OpenAI access to extensive current and archival content from outlets like The Wall Street Journal, The Times, and The New York Post for model training and for serving answers in ChatGPT. The Wall Street Journal reported the deal could exceed $250 million over five years, and company statements called it a “historic” or “landmark” agreement—clearly a blockbuster‑scale licensing deal for generative AI. (apnews.com)

  • Financial Times–OpenAI (Apr 2024): The FT entered a strategic content‑licensing partnership letting OpenAI train its generative models on FT journalism and surface FT summaries and links in ChatGPT—explicitly a license of its archive for generative‑AI use and new product revenue. (ft.com)

  • The Atlantic and Vox Media–OpenAI (May 2024): Both signed multi‑year content and product partnerships that license their archives to OpenAI for training ChatGPT and related models, with payment and joint product development—again, large rights‑holder IP libraries being monetized through generative‑AI licenses. (reuters.com)

  • Condé Nast–OpenAI (2024): Condé Nast (The New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Wired, etc.) likewise entered a multi‑year deal licensing its brands’ content to OpenAI for use in ChatGPT and an experimental search product, explicitly framed as a pivot toward licensing IP to generative‑AI platforms. (wired.com)

  • Lionsgate–Runway AI (Sept 2024): Lionsgate, a major Hollywood studio (Hunger Games, John Wick, Twilight), signed a first‑of‑its‑kind deal letting Runway train a custom generative‑video model on Lionsgate’s library of 20,000+ film and TV titles, to be used throughout the studio’s production pipeline. Coverage described it as a landmark data‑sharing/AI deal between a generative‑AI startup and a major studio. (medianama.com)

Collectively, these are exactly the sort of “blockbuster” generative‑AI licensing deals Friedberg anticipated: large rights‑holders licensing substantial content libraries to AI companies for model training and generative outputs, in exchange for significant payments and new revenue lines.

His more specific example of Disney licensing its library did not materialize in 2024—reports in late 2024 still described Disney and Paramount only as being in talks with AI providers, with no announced library‑licensing deals. (techcrunch.com) But the core prediction was about several big generative‑AI licensing deals by major IP owners happening in 2024, which clearly occurred, so the prediction is best scored as right overall.