Slate Money: “Disney Gets Ahead of the Darth Vader Porn”

Date: December 13, 2025
Host: Felix Salmon with Elizabeth Spires and Emily Peck

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the intersection of tech and content ownership, focusing on Disney’s billion-dollar investment in OpenAI and innovative—but controversial—approaches to AI content restrictions. The hosts scrutinize how these developments reshape intellectual property (IP) protection, the future of video AI, equity in IPOs, and the evolution of pricing strategies—ranging from Instacart eggs to World Cup tickets and immigration “gold cards.”

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Disney’s Billion-Dollar OpenAI Deal: Policing Darth Vader and Sora

• Disney invests $1B in OpenAI, acquiring not just equity but imposing extensive licensing controls over how AI systems like Sora can use Disney IP ([02:34]–[04:40]).
• Emily Peck explains:
  “Disney is getting some measure of control...You cannot show a picture of you and Darth Vader doing anything naughty. You cannot mimic Darth Vader's voice...There's a very long appendix that sort of outlines what can't happen in these SORA videos.” ([03:17])
• Industry Blueprint:
  Disney’s deal signals a proactive shift: rather than suing AI firms for copyright infringement after the fact, IP holders are baking restrictions into licensing terms from the outset.
• Carrot & Stick Approach:
  Disney invests in OpenAI (carrot), but sends legal warnings to competitors like Google and Anthropic (stick) ([05:44]).

Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "You are not going to be allowed to make a video of them doing things in bed together."
  — Felix Salmon, joking on Disney+OpenAI ([00:29])
• "Disney is sort of like the king of US copyright. They literally changed the copyright law...to keep Mickey under lock and key for longer."
  — Emily Peck ([08:54])

Debate on Enforceability: The ‘Snoopy Problem’

• Elizabeth Spires: Skeptical about AI’s ability to police outputs.
  “How even OpenAI will be able to enforce these rules...users find a million ways to get around them.” ([06:27])
• Felix vs. Elizabeth:
  Can AI really detect and block sneaky, abstracted versions of Disney characters? ([10:47]–[12:40])
• Felix: “Technology is 100% capable of looking at a picture of Snoopy and saying, is this other picture Snoopy?” ([12:31])
• Elizabeth: “It famously is not. That's one of the weaknesses.” ([12:36])

2. IP, Fair Use, and Who’s Really Losing Out

• Authors and Creators: Despite settlements (e.g., Felix gets $5K from Microsoft for his book), most large deals benefit IP giants like Disney.
  “Who is getting hurt or whose creativity and IP is just getting completely ripped off...I think tbd and it's going to be hard to even understand it.” — Emily Peck ([10:03])
• Fair Use Questioned:
  “It's crazy to me that I didn't know it was understood that that was considered fair use. Isn't the New York Times suing them over this?” — Emily Peck ([15:52])

3. AI, Video, and User-Generated Content Gold Rush

• Disney’s win: If users make great AI-generated short films with Disney IP, Disney owns that work—potentially creating a massive free UGC pool ([14:07]–[15:18]).
• Emily Peck: “The future of mindless scrolling is not mindless scrolling through videoed TikToks, but… AI generated short form video.” ([14:35])

4. IPO Mania: Will 2026 Inflate the Next Bubble?

• IPO Forecast: $3 trillion in new market cap possible in 2026; SpaceX, OpenAI, and more may go public ([20:41]–[22:30]).
• SpaceX IPO:
  “If it goes public, the valuations being mooted would probably be worth more than Tesla, which is kind of wild.” — Felix ([21:01])
• Dot-com echoes:
  1999–2000 was “the greatest time to go public in the history of the planet,” but investors—not companies—got “annihilated” ([23:04]–[23:44]).
• Tech companies staying private: Stripe, SpaceX, and others have used private liquidity rounds as alternatives to IPOs, but public listing is coming back into fashion ([24:00]–[24:44]).

On Elon Musk and SpaceX’s Motivation

• Emily Peck: “I can't see Musk and SpaceX wanting to disrupt that vibe... Unless Musk is like, I want to be a trillionaire, which would really be a motivating factor.” ([24:50])
• Elizabeth on Musk: “He does have to pay 30 million to each of his baby mamas. So if he wants like a billion more kids, he's got to find that money somewhere.” ([26:01])

Starlink as SpaceX’s Value Driver

• Felix Salmon: “Starlink is the massive majority of the value of SpaceX.” ([28:32])

5. Dynamic Pricing Hits Home: From Instacart to FIFA

• Instacart’s Experiment: Prices for identical products vary between users—are they algorithmically personalized or just A/B tests? ([34:48]–[36:50])
• Concerns:
  • Using personal data for price discrimination is ethically fraught.
  • “Orbitz used to charge Mac users more because they had data that said…you probably had higher income.” — Elizabeth ([36:06])
• Regulation:
  NY now requires disclosure if you’re charged a personalized price, but none of the hosts have seen such disclaimers.
• Dynamic pricing analogy:
  “You can go to happy hour and get your beer for $2 off… With algorithmic pricing, with buying the eggs, you have no freaking idea.” — Emily Peck ([38:00])

World Cup Tickets & the Global Capitalism Divide

• FIFA’s resale marketplace: Average ticket prices soared to ~$5,000, up 5X from Qatar, causing international outrage ([41:18]–[43:11]).
• Emily Peck: “That's just sports right now…anything in person now...five times as much as it was five years ago.” ([42:02])
• Felix on world attitudes: “In the rest of the world, there is real anger about this...most football fans are not American.” ([43:15])
• Elizabeth Spires: “Only the obscenely rich should be able to see a soccer game.” ([44:17])

Trump’s “Gold Card” for Immigration

• $1 million ‘gold card’ green card system—pay to skip the immigration line. Platinum card allows (questionably legal) US entry with no tax on global income ([44:40]–[46:36]).
• “Is this discrimination in favor of rich people? Like, duh.” — Felix ([45:47])

Notable Quotes & Moments

• [09:14] Felix Salmon: “Every time that Mickey was about to come out of copyright, they would, like, lobby Congress and Congress would extend it. It was wild.”
• [16:52] Felix Hammond: “I'm rich because that's all they're paying me for is...we are going to throw your book into this massive pool of data that we are ingesting.”
• [23:04] Felix Salmon: “Anyone who wasn't issuing equity into the dot com bubble was a moron.”
• [26:47] Elizabeth Spires: “Well, he does have to pay 30 million to each of his baby mamas.”
• [43:56] Emily Peck: “Everything costs, like, a few thousand dollars, anything you want to see. And, like, the rest of the world's like, girl, no, it doesn't have to be like that.”

Timestamps of Key Segments

• Disney’s OpenAI Deal Explained: [02:34] – [06:11]
• Can Disney & OpenAI Really Prevent “Darth Vader Porn”?: [06:11] – [14:56]
• IP, Creators, and Fair Use Debate: [14:56] – [17:47]
• IPO Mania & the Next Tech Bubble: [20:41] – [29:56]
• Dynamic Pricing & Personalization Ethics: [34:48] – [40:42]
• World Cup Ticket Outrage: [41:18] – [44:40]
• Immigration “Gold Card” System: [44:40] – [48:51]
• Numbers Round (Fun, Quirky Stats): [51:06] – [58:28]

Tone & Atmosphere

• Wry, skeptical, and often irreverent; the hosts joke freely (e.g., “Darth Vader porn”), but provide sharp, well-contextualized business analysis.
• Emily and Elizabeth often challenge Felix’s assertions, especially on fairness and accessibility, making for a lively, conversational feel.

Final Thoughts

This episode is a must-listen for anyone curious about how AI, Big Tech, and powerful content owners are rewriting the rules of media, business, and personal rights. Whether discussing the practical limits of AI content policing, dissecting the possibilities of a historic IPO wave, or exposing the unseen hands behind consumer pricing, the hosts blend critical perspective with a wealth of industry knowledge.