Mouse v Machine

Disney poking one Big AI with a legal stick while cosying up to another is the most 2025 thing imaginable.

On one hand, reports of a short, sharp IP licence to OpenAI – characters, not actors, and certainly not forever – hint at a premium, permissioned future. On the other, a cease-and-desist to Google to stop Gemini spitting out Darth, Elsa and chums shows the mouse still has claws. Either way, the message is unmistakable; content custody is strategy, not admin.

This focus on IP control has its roots in the Netflix experience. Many TV shows from the likes of Disney and others were innocently licenced onto the streaming platform to make a quick buck. Now that Netflix has the heft and cash to be a competitor of these studios – and to buy up Warner Bros Discovery itself – these originators are regretting assisting the monster they helped to create. As a result, they’re dead-set on not making the same mistake again. Taking equity in OpenAI as well as a time-limited licence deal means they’ve got control – and they’re not afraid to threaten Google at the same time.  

What’s this got to do with UK agency and portals? Everything. Your photos, walkthroughs, floorplans, descriptions, comparables, vendor letters, neighbourhood notes – that’s your IP. Models learn from it, portals monetise it, and consumers rank you by it. If Hollywood is treating data like gold, you shouldn’t be leaving yours in the office biscuit tin.

A few takeaways before Sora or its successors land properly in the UK and the remix era goes mainstream:

• Own the masters. Keep original, highest‑res media in a single, searchable library with clear rights and expiry dates. Don’t let versions scatter across WhatsApp threads and WeTransfer links. Tomorrow’s model training negotiations start with who can prove provenance today.

• Mark your media. Light, tasteful watermarking and embedded IPTC/C2PA provenance (basically a digital watermark that travels with the images) won’t ruin a hero shot but will help deter scraping, prove origin and reinforce brand.

  
  

• Read the small print. What are you now being required to sign? Ask what's changed in the next contract. Make no mistake - the portals are rattled and are going to try and find ways to lock your content into their platforms. Don't give anything away without getting something in return.

• Get vendor consent, explicitly. Update your terms to cover AI usage: staging, sky replacement, decluttering, narration, language translation, and any third‑party processing outside the UK. Be transparent in listings when imagery has been enhanced. Trust compounds.

• Control the crawlers. Review robots.txt and meta tags for “noai/noimageai” where appropriate; whitelist reputable partners; monitor server logs for aggressive scrapers. If you want your market guides indexed but your raw photo sets ring‑fenced, set it deliberately.

• Measure and negotiate. If your content drives enquiries and time‑on‑page for portals – 80% of all time searching for property is spent on Rightmove is always something it boasts about – take those stats to the table when your rep arrives with the annual budget-breaker. If they’re not providing that data for you, why not?

Disney’s move signals that premium IP will be fenced, licensed and priced. Local agency can do the same at a neighbourhood scale. Curate the best, most truthful representations of place; protect them; and be open about when silicon lends a hand. When AI enters the mainstream, the winners won’t be those with the flashiest prompts, but those with the cleanest rights, clearest labels and deepest local trust.