A federal district court in Northern California has ruled against OpenAI, preventing the company from using the name “Cameo” in its products and features, siding with Cameo, a platform offering personalized celebrity video messages.
The court’s decision was in response to OpenAI’s use of the name “Cameo” for a feature within its AI-powered video generation application, Sora 2, which allowed users to embed digital likenesses of themselves into AI-generated videos. The court found that the name was sufficiently similar to cause user confusion and rejected OpenAI’s claim that “Cameo” was merely descriptive, determining that it suggested rather than described the feature.
A temporary restraining order had been granted to Cameo in November, preventing OpenAI from using the word. Following this order, OpenAI renamed the feature to “Characters.” Steven Galanis, CEO of Cameo, stated that the company has spent nearly a decade developing its brand, focusing on talent-friendly interactions and genuine connections. He viewed the ruling as a victory for the company, its marketplace integrity, and its creators, and affirmed that Cameo will continue to defend its intellectual property.
An OpenAI spokesperson expressed disagreement with the complaint’s assertion that exclusive ownership over the word “cameo” is possible and indicated that the company anticipates continuing to present its case. OpenAI has been involved in multiple intellectual property cases, recently removing “IO” branding from upcoming hardware products. The company is also engaged in legal disputes with various parties, including the digital library app OverDrive, which sued OpenAI over its use of “Sora” for its video generation application, as well as artists, creatives, and media groups concerning copyright violations.
