TOGETHER WITH

It’s Tuesday and you can now plan a vacation, level up your Spotify playlist, and look for your next apartment just by chatting it up with ChatGPT.

Today’s News

PLATFORM HEADLINES

Sora is soaring to the top of the app charts

The app: It’s been just one week since OpenAI’s official Sora app launched, and the AI-driven TikTok copycat is already topping the app charts.

Sora first gained infamy last spring after OpenAI’s then-CTO was unable to confirm or deny whether the video creation tool included YouTube videos in its training set without creators’ consent. OpenAI still has yet to provide a definitive answer—but that hasn’t stopped the newly-debuted Sora app from gaining popularity.

The newly launched invite-only platform mimics the swath of short-form video apps that spawned after the 2020 TikTok boom, but with a twist: everything on the platform is generated by the company’s video LLM Sora. In essence, Sora allows people to use text prompts to create short vertical videos featuring generated versions of themselves and/or their friends. These videos can be in any genre and style—including those drawn from copyrighted content like TV shows and movies. Users can also watch other people’s videos whether they’re logged in or not (although you can’t interact further without access to the app).

The copyright concerns: As Axios points out, OpenAI hasn’t yet contended with all the potential copyright issues involved in its Sora training or the new copyright issues that allowing people to copy TV/movies will bring.

It’s possible that with the release of Sora, OpenAI is hoping copyright holders will see potential benefits in letting their projects be ground into LLM sausage or riffed on by fans. That may be the case—but somehow, we don’t think seeing Sora rise to #1 in app stores with help from copyrighted IP will make rights-holders less litigious.

🌟 SPONSORED 🌟

In one week, the MIP Innovation Lab will return to the world’s biggest content market

Every fall, MIPCOM CANNES becomes the epicenter of the global content industry. 

From October 13-16, media execs and creators from 100+ countries will gather at the world’s biggest TV/streaming content market to explore the future of YouTube, learn from top creators like Dhar Mann, and uncover the secrets to Mattel’s success. 

Also on the agenda for 2025: The return of the MIP Innovation Lab.

The Innovation Lab is MIPCOM's dedicated space for cutting-edge tech companies and content creators with networking/demo spaces and summits on AI, FAST/AVOD, and Connected TV. In 2025, that hub is expanding to offer a new workshop series from YouTube.

Here are three sessions to add to your MIPCOM schedule:

• “YouTube for Rights Holders: A Strategic Guide to Revenue Growth” with Bora Basman (Strategic Partnerships Manager, YouTube), Sam Vergauwen (Country Manager Benelux, YouTube) and Ceyda Sila Cetinkaya (COO, Global, Merzigo)
  
  

• “Boost your Audience by Crafting Compelling Content on YouTube” with Ecenur Dogan (Strategic Partner Manager, MediaCo, YouTube) Neil Price (Film & TV Partnerships Lead, YouTube), Tarif Rahman (Senior Content Strategist, Little Dot Studios)
  
  

• “Infinite Creativity: Storytelling in the Imagination Age” with Adrienne Lahens (Founder, Infinite Studios)

Visit the website to learn more:

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Following widespread complaints about its Map feature, Instagram is adding “a more prominent, persistent indicator…reminding you whether or not you’re sharing location.” (TechCrunch)
  
  

• TikTok is increasing the subscription revenue of certain North American creators through new bonus initiatives. (Social Media Today)
  
  

• A Formula 4 contest featuring creator-led racing teams broke a French streaming record by drawing 1.4 million Twitch viewers. (Deadline)
  
  

• OpenAI says it will eventually allow devs to build “mature experiences” through ChatGPT. (Gizmodo)

TOP 50 MOST-SUBSCRIBED

KPop Demon Hunters is still rocking the YouTube charts

The rules: If you’ve browsed social media anytime in the past few years, you’ll know two rules seem to persist online without exception: 1) there’s a Subreddit for literally everything, and 2) if there’s inellectual property that’s popular among children, someone will create a YouTube Shorts channel featuring adults dressed up in related costumes.

The channel: Case in point: Rumi-KPOP. The South Korea-based channel appears to have begun uploading videos around September 2, when its first KPop Demon Hunters-themed Short went live. A little over a month later, the hub’s most viral Short has attracted 90 million views and counting—and it’s only one among dozens of videos that have amassed millions of views for Rumi-KPOP. The channel’s now got almost a billion views, over 2 million subscribers, and is #2 on our Tubefilter Chart of Top 50 Most Subscribed YouTube Channels Worldwide.

The majority of those videos feature almost identical stars and storylines. Adults dressed up in KPop Demon Hunters costumes engage in some form of battle, usually accented by 1990s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers-level visual effects and some lip-syncing. That strategy might seem elementary, but it nevertheless helped propel the channel to #2 in this week’s Global Top 50 Most-Subscribed chart—and we’re not surprised by that success.

The IP: Using a popular piece of international IP as the basis for a YouTube channel has long been a solid tactic for securing universal appeal (see Spiderman and Elsa circa 2017 YouTube).

KPop Demon Hunters has smashed streaming records to become Netflix’s most-watched movie ever. Its limited theatrical “sing-along” release alone pulled in over $19 million in a single weekend, giving Netflix its first No. 1 box office crown. The streamer is also reportedly considering at least two sequels, a live-action remake, and a stage show.

Clearly, there’s enough hype to go around—and Rumi-KPOP has figured out exactly how to tap into the mania.

EVENTS & HAPPENINGS

60,000 attendees will explore media and entertainment at the UAE’s BRIDGE Summit

The summit: The United Arab Emirates is continuing its push to become a prominent hub for digital content creation with BRIDGE Summit, an event where “the future of media, entertainment, culture, and technology meets power, policy, and capital on one bridge.”

Put on by the UAE National Media Office, the first BRIDGE Summit plans to bring over 60,000 attendees to the ADNEC Centre in Abu Dhabi for “inspiring talks and keynote speeches,” “mind-opening panel discussions,” networking and collaborations, policymaker roundtables, workshops and masterclasses, new product launches, and innovation showcases.

The three-day conference will offer a swath of programming tracks across multiple industries (including Creator Economy, Technology, Marketing, Media, Gaming, Picture/Film, and Music), as well as featuring over 400 speakers. Among the names on that expert lineup:

• Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian

• TIME CEO Jessica Sibley

• Omar bin Sultan Al Olama, the UAE’s Minister of State for AI, Digital Economy, and Remote Work

• Mo Abudu, Founder & CEO of EbonyLife Media

• Anthony Scaramucci, former Trump administration White House Communications Director and current Founder & Managing Partner at SkyBridge Capital

• Travel YouTuber Joe Hattab

• Podcaster Steven Bartlett

The Business Office: BRIDGE Summit is opening an official Business Office it says will give partners and VIP guests “direct access to leading local media and entertainment entities and free zones in the UAE.” That in turn, it adds, will create “a perfect opportunity for stakeholders to launch new ideas, innovations, and businesses in the Emirates.”

The registration process: Those interested in attending BRIDGE Summit can apply here, while those interested in exhibiting can apply here.

FYI: BRIDGE Summit is a Tubefilter partner

WATCH THIS 📺

What did 17-year-old MrBeast think 2025 would look like?

The time capsule: Three days ago, MrBeast uploaded a decade-old video letter from his seventeen-year-old self. In that clip, a young Jimmy Donaldson nervously expressed his hope that he’d have graduated college, snagged one million subscribers, and maybe even gotten hitched by 2025. What he didn’t seem concerned about was the future of AI.

That isn’t the case anymore. One day before his video time capsule hit YouTube, Donaldson posted on X that he wonders how AI “will impact the millions of creators currently making content for a living.” He dubbed the current era “scary times”—a marked difference from the way his high school-aged self looked ahead to 2025.

Of course, present-day MrBeast does have 442M more subscribers than his younger self predicted he’d have by 2025—so, you win some, you lose some.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen.