the brAIn - real AI intelligence for media & entertainment

This episode features Peter Csathy's recent "AI Royalty Marketplace" exclusive Digital Hollywood session (recorded late July 2026). Peter is joined by an expert all-star panel that features Adam Greenberg of The New York Times, Dave Davis of Protege, Emi Wayner (formerly Google AI), Luke Arrigoni of Loti, and Mickey Maher of Vermillio -- all key players in the world of AI content licensing.

The discussion focuses on the latest updat...

This episode features Peter Csathy's recent exclusive Digital Hollywood AI/Legal roundtable session recorded late July 2026 - in which Peter, Chief Legal Officer Jeffrey Bennett of SAG-AFTRA, and Partner Avery Williams of McKool Smith discuss all the latest developments in the world of AI, copyright, name image likeness (NIL) personal rights, and SAG's new contract. 

It's an "Insider's" look of all the key business and legal is...

It used to be so simple to answer the question “who” made this music, image, video, advertising, or piece of art. Not anymore. Not in the world of generative AI. So it should be no surprise that the “AI labeling” moment has arrived. 

In this episode - AI LABEL ALERT - Google NotebookLM's synthetic co-hosts discuss Peter Csathy's upcoming article about the increasing expectation of consumers for AI transp...

This episode discusses host Peter Csathy's upcoming article about the breaking news that Google's DeepMind just invested $75 million into powerhouse taste-making, auteur-driven, boutique studio A24.

Yes, A24 — the darling of film hipsters everywhere — just jumped the AI shark. The studio behind breakout hit Backrooms and Academy Award-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once just shook hands with the biggest of Big Tech...

Remember when ByteDance’s AI video model Seedance was a four-letter word in Hollywood? That was only four months ago, when it was Public Enemy #1 — the AI thief caught red-handed lifting Hollywood’s IP.

Fast forward to today. Seedance now firmly wears the crown with Hollywood creatives. Ask leading AI filmmakers — the ones building the future of video production — and they’ll tell you the same thi...

Peter Csathy recently sat down with Character.AI CEO Karan Anand. While their conversation focused on the notorious chatbot pioneer’s surprising pivot to entertainment and its aggressive courtship of Hollywood IP, it sparked a related new phenomenon — we have now entered the era of the “Always On” celebrity. 

In this episode -- based on Peter's recent article of the same name -- Peter's hosts explore the...

In this episode, I feature my exclusive interview with Karan Anand, CEO of Character.AI— the controversial “AI companion chatbot” company that has been at the center of the AI storm (including tragic stories of teens who commit suicide after having established deep relationships with their chatbots).

Likely surprising to many of you (it was to me), Character.AI is now pivoting to be first and foremost an A...

This week I feature last week’s exclusive Digital Hollywood expert panel discussion about AI and copyright — the latest legal and business updates. 

I moderated this great panel, which featured AI expert lawyers Lisa Oratz of Perkins Coie, Anthony Glukhov of the RAMO firm, and Jonathan Handel of Feig, Finkel — together with AI and marketing expert Albert Thompson of Walton Isaacson.

We covered a lot of ground i...

Just when you thought Hollywood’s increasingly open embrace of AI coincided with newly emerging AI economics and Big Tech norms of engagement, we have a major plot twist. TikTok’s owner from China, ByteDance, just re-launched largely guardrail-less Seedance 2.0 worldwide — and the Hollywood industry’s latest AI pariah is now readily available in the U.S. 

Welcome to the new “AI Trade War!”

In ...

This special bonus episode -- just in time for the first weekend of Coachella --features a "deep dive" discussion based on host Peter Csathy's recent article of the same name (here's the link), in which Csathy writes that Artists and Musicians can, in fact, recapture their U.S. copyrights to their songs, recordings and other creative works even if they originally signed publishing and recording agreements under U.K. law (or other i...

A few weeks ago, I joined a panel of experts at the Television Academy for a packed house Academy-only “AI Summit” weekend session. We discussed the latest business, legal, and regulatory AI issues and developments that impact Hollywood and the overall media and entertainment community. I tackled many of the business issues — including the latest licensing news and business models.

For the first time, non-Academy m...

In this episode, I feature a fascinating "deep dive" of my newsletter with the same title - generated using Google NotebookLM (all prompts were mine, and I approve the episode's content). 

Here’s the headline: OpenAI killed Sora and its $1 billion deal with Disney due to the sheer economics of boundless consumer generative AI video, not AI tech. Enterprise use is in focus.

Here are the top 5 takeaways:

1. The "Compute Tax"...

In this episode, I feature a fascinating "deep dive" of my newsletter titled "Market Substitution: Generative AI's 'Fair Use' Fail" that I generated using Google NotebookLM (all prompts were mine, and I approve the episode's content). 

Here’s the headline: the Creative Community now has AI on its copyright litigation heels. That means that the “3 C’s” of so-called “ethical AI” — Consent...

Occasionally, I'll take a break from my exlusive 1-1 interviews with top movers and shakers in the AI and media/entertainment worlds to feature fascinating "deeper dives" of my articles (that I generate, and approve, via Google NotebookLM). 

This is one such "deep dive" - based on my recent newsletter article titled, "Maybe AI WILL Save the World? Join My Journey of Unbridled AI Optimism." I handled all the prompting - listened...

What happens when the chief spokesperson and lobbyist for the Human Artistry Campaign (the coalition of 180+ creative and Artist organizations worldwide) sits down to discuss the state of AI regulation and legislation in D.C.? You get a fascinating conversation with Dr. Moiya McTier. Moiya has spent time on Capitol Hill with members of Congress in support of the creative community’s interests. 

Here are some highlights of...

In this episode, I revisit my conversation with Josh Freeman, VP of Business Development of "must watch" company ProRata.ai, which sits at the center of the generative AI/content divide. The company recently raised an additional $40 million (bringing its total haul to over $70 million). Its vision is to solve one of the most challenging issues at the center of generative AI — i.e., the use of IP/content without consent, compe...

What happens when an entrepreneur looking for love finds dating perils instead? She builds a new AI dating App to spot those relationship red flags and deliver real-time coaching and safety.My interview today is with Blair Golden, Founder & CEO of Pair — your always-on personal AI dating coach that just launched in the App Store last week. 

Blair & I Discuss:

• The “Dating Jungle” Inspiration. Blair&r...

What happens when the top AI disruptor in the world of advertising, PJ Accetturo (aka PJ Ace, the “Viral AI Ad Madman”) — founder and CEO of leading AI creative studio and agency Genre AI — sits down to talk shop? You get a fascinating, blunt discussion of how AI is fundamentally transforming the world of big brand and Hollywood studio advertising and production.

PJ and I discuss:

• How Genre AI broke out wi...

What happens when Google’s head of entertainment content & platforms, Jon Zepp, sits down to talk shop? You get one of Big Tech’s leading AI “insiders” whose focus is to work with the creative community — and to overcome friction, and focus instead on unlocking new creative possibilities.

I interview Jon about it all in this episode. He deeply respects Artists — is one of the sharpest minds I ...