Back in May, OpenAI said it was developing a tool to let creators specify how they want their works to be included in — or excluded from — its AI training data. But 7 months later, this feature has yet to see the light of day.
Called Media Manager, the tool would “identify copyrighted text, images, audio, and video,” OpenAI said at the time, to reflect creators’ preferences “across multiple sources.” It was intended to stave off some of the company’s fiercest critics, and potentially shield OpenAI from IP-related legal challenges.
But people familiar tell TechCrunch that the tool was rarely viewed as an important launch internally. “I don’t think it was a priority,” one former OpenAI employee said. “To be honest, I don’t remember anyone working on it.”
A non-employee who coordinates work with the company told TechCrunch in December that they had discussed the tool with OpenAI in the past, but that there haven’t been any recent updates. (These people declined to be publicly identified discussing confidential business matters.)
And a member of OpenAI’s legal team who was working on Media Manager, Fred von Lohmann, transitioned to a part-time consultant role in October. OpenAI PR confirmed Von Lohmann’s move to TechCrunch via email.
OpenAI has yet to give an update on Media Manager’s progress, and the company missed a self-imposed deadline to have the tool in place “by 2025.” (To be clear, “by 2025” could be read as inclusive of the year 2025, but TechCrunch interpreted OpenAI’s language to mean leading up to January 1, 2025.)
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