Authors Guild and Prominent Fiction Authors File Lawsuit Against OpenAI Over Alleged Infringement
A class action lawsuit has been filed by the Authors Guild and a group of prominent fiction authors, including George R.R. Martin, John Grisham, Michael Connelly, and Jodi Picoult, against OpenAI. The lawsuit claims that OpenAI’s AI technology has infringed upon their work, accusing the company of copying their works without permission or consideration.
According to the allegations, OpenAI fed the authors’ works into large language models, specifically its popular chatbot ChatGPT, which is designed to generate human-like text responses to users’ prompts and queries. The plaintiffs argue that ChatGPT accurately produced summaries of specific works by Grisham, even utilizing the same characters found in existing books.
The authors’ lawsuit argues that ChatGPT could not have generated the material if it had not been trained on Grisham’s works, and calls attention to the exploitation of content providers by Silicon Valley’s longstanding practice of utilizing generative AI. Author Jonathan Franzen, commenting on the matter, stated that authors should have the right to decide when and how their works are used to train AI models, and if they choose to opt in, they should be appropriately compensated.
The class action lawsuit names authors such as David Baldacci, Mary Bly, Sylvia Day, Elin Hilderbrand, Christina Baker Kline, Maya Shanbhag Lang, Victor LaValle, Douglas Preston, Roxana Robinson, George Saunders, Scott Turow, and Rachel Vail as plaintiffs. The lawsuit seeks to prohibit OpenAI from using their works in large language models without their consent. Additionally, the plaintiffs are seeking either unspecified actual damages or statutory damages of up to $150,000 per violated work.
OpenAI has responded to the allegations, stating that creative professionals worldwide use ChatGPT as part of their creative process. The company claims to respect the rights of writers and believes they should benefit from AI technology. OpenAI states that it is engaged in productive discussions with various creators, including the Authors Guild, and is cooperating to address their concerns regarding AI. They are optimistic about finding mutually beneficial ways to work together in utilizing new technology in a content-rich ecosystem.
This lawsuit is not the first one filed against AI creators. Last summer, actress Sarah Silverman sued Facebook parent company Meta and OpenAI, alleging copyright infringement in the use of her content to train AI language models without permission.
As the case progresses, the outcome will have significant implications for the relationship between content creators and AI technology. It will likely shape the future direction of AI development and usage, as well as establish guidelines for the fair and ethical treatment of creative works in the digital age. Both sides of the debate will be closely watching the proceedings, and the resolution will undoubtedly impact the rights and compensation of authors in the increasingly complex landscape of AI and intellectual property.
