OpenAI is moving to give entertainment companies and other rightsholders more control over how their characters appear in Sora, the invite-only AI video app that on Friday became the No. 1 app on Apple’s U.S. App Store.

In a blog post late Friday, CEO Sam Altman said the company will introduce ‘more granular control over generation of characters,’ similar to the opt-in model already used for individual likenesses but with additional settings. Rightsholders will be able to specify how their properties may be used, including not at all, he wrote.

The change amounts to a walk-back of the opt-out system Sora had at launch, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which noted the app had quickly filled with recognizable characters from South Park, Dune and Rick and Morty, angering some Hollywood executives. Altman also said OpenAI will experiment with sharing revenue with rightsholders who allow their characters to be generated by users.

‘People are generating much more than we expected per user, and a lot of videos are being generated for very small audiences,’ Altman wrote, adding that the exact model will require ‘trial and error.’

Sora hit No. 1 on Apple’s U.S. App Store on Friday, despite remaining invite-only. Appfigures estimates it drew 56,000 U.S. and Canadian iOS downloads on day one, on par with xAI’s Grok and ahead of Anthropic’s Claude and Microsoft’s Copilot.