A group of prominent authors, including Michael Chabon, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Sarah Silverman, are currently embroiled in a legal battle against the artificial intelligence (AI) company OpenAI for copyright infringement. They, along with two other authors, Richard Kadrey and Christopher Golden, filed a lawsuit in July 2023, alleging that OpenAI’s ChatGPT infringes on their copyrights when generating summaries of their work.
Authors argue their case against OpenAI’s ChatGPT
The authors argue that ChatGPT indicates the training via copyrighted content, thereby violating their intellectual property rights. They further claim that allowing OpenAI to face parallel lawsuits in different jurisdictions, such as the cases initiated by The New York Times (NYT) and John Grisham in New York, would result in inconsistent rulings and waste court resources.
In response to the New York lawsuits, the California plaintiffs contend that OpenAI is engaging in “forum shopping” and “procedural gamesmanship” to seek more favorable conditions in New York after facing rejection in California. They argue that the New York cases closely resemble their own, suggesting that OpenAI is attempting to avoid unfavorable outcomes.
This legal battle is part of a broader trend where copyright owners, including writers, visual artists, and music publishers, are suing tech companies over alleged misuse of their work to train AI systems. OpenAI, along with other tech giants like Meta, defends its AI training practices as transformative and within the fair use copyright doctrine.
Copyright controversy pitches authors against tech giants
The authors draw parallels to legal precedents, such as Google’s book copying for search, which was deemed fair use in the landmark case Authors Guild vs. Google in 2015. The controversy surrounding OpenAI intensified in September 2023 when a group of published writers, led by the Authors Guild, joined a proposed class-action lawsuit against OpenAI.
Notable authors such as George R.R. Martin, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult, George Saunders, and Jonathan Franzen are among the plaintiffs. The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI’s misuse of copyrighted material in training its AI models infringes on the original journalism of The New York Times, among other publications.
Both sides in the legal dispute are leveraging constitutional and statutory arguments. The plaintiffs rely on the U.S. Constitution and the Copyright Act to defend their intellectual property rights, while OpenAI and its supporters argue that their AI training practices are transformative and constitute fair use.
The outcome of these lawsuits will likely have significant implications for the intersection of copyright law and artificial intelligence. As AI continues to evolve and play a more prominent role in various industries, clarifying the legal boundaries surrounding its use of copyrighted material will be crucial for both content creators and tech companies. Until then, the legal battle between authors and AI companies like OpenAI will continue to unfold in courtrooms across the country.
