Authors sue OpenAI for copyright infringement, joining legal battle against AI companies

A group of prominent authors, including George R.R. Martin, John Grisham, and Jonathan Franzen, along with the Authors Guild, have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for copyright infringement.

This is the latest lawsuit against OpenAI from popular authors.

The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI used the authors' copyrighted works without permission to train its large language models (LLMs), including GPT. The plaintiffs hope to have the case classified as a class action lawsuit, representing a broader group of authors.

According to the complaint, OpenAI copied the authors' works wholesale and used them to train its LLMs, allowing anyone to generate text that mimics, summarizes, or paraphrases their books. The authors argue that this could harm their ability to make a living from their creative works. They claim that OpenAI could have used public domain works instead of copyrighted material without paying licensing fees.

This lawsuit is part of a broader legal battle between authors and generative AI companies over copyright infringement. Several authors, including Michael Chabon, Sarah Silverman, Christopher Golden, and Richard Kadrey, have previously filed similar lawsuits against OpenAI and Meta. The legal challenges highlight the complexities surrounding the use of copyrighted material to train AI models.

Generative AI companies are facing increased scrutiny and legal action related to copyright issues, with lawsuits also being filed against AI image platforms. Microsoft, a partner of OpenAI, has announced plans to defend commercial users of its Copilot AI service if they face legal action related to copyright infringement.

OpenAI has not yet responded to requests for comment regarding the latest lawsuit.