If like me, you’ve been spending a little too much time on social media in the past week, you’ve probably come across the new trend of using ChatGPT to ‘Ghiblify’ a photo. Since OpenAI’s new image-generation tools were launched last week, users have been prompting ChatGPT to recreate their photos in ‘Studio Ghibli style’.
Studio Ghibli movies are of course copyright protected, but an artistic style is generally isn’t. Similar styles or drawing techniques are not copyrightable, if they do not copy specific characters or artwork owned by Studio Ghibli. OpenAI have said ChatGPT does not replicate “the style of individual living artists”, but can replicate “broader studio styles”. This seems a little contradictory, as Studio Ghibli art style is credited to its founder, Hayao Miyazaki (who notably considers AI art to be ‘an insult to life itself’).
So these recreations do not infringe copyright, but it again brings us to the broader issue of the legality of training AI models on copyrighted material, such as Studio Ghibli artwork, without permission.
For anyone interested, this Business Insider article discusses the issue further!: https://www.businessinsider.com/ghibli-ai-trend-viral-response-heartwarming-2025-3
Copyright & Social Media
Communications Law
As a self-professed Ghibli fan, I too was swarmed by the buzz around ‘Ghlibification’. Great post Rosie! The volume of reproduction of the Ghibli style certainly raised questions as to whether the lower quality AI versions could affect the Ghibli brand and whether Studio Ghibli may therefore seek to commence its own rendition of the Copyright Wars. I looked to see what the TechnoLlama had to say about it here (https://www.technollama.co.uk/the-style-returns-some-notes-on-chatgpt-and-studio-ghibli): he appears to conclude the trend to be more of a cultural phenomenon than an existential legal challenge to the existence of art in the modern world, and will likely fade along with so many other viral trends. It will certainly be interesting to see how this plays out!