George R.R. Martin and other authors sue OpenAI for copyright infringement

More authors sued OpenAI for copyright infringement, joining other writers in taking legal action against generative AI companies for using their books to train AI models.

The Authors Guild and 17 well-known authors including Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham, George RR Martin and Jodi Picoult filed the lawsuit in the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs hope the filing will be classified as a class action lawsuit.

According to the complaintOpenAI “copied plaintiffs’ works wholesale, without permission or consideration” and embedded the copyrighted materials into large language models.

“The livelihood of these authors derives from the works they create. But the defendant’s LLMs jeopardize the ability of fiction writers to earn a living, since LLMs allow anyone to automatically generate for free (or very cheaply) texts that they would otherwise pay writers to produce. that they created them,” the lawsuit says.

The authors added that OpenAI’s LLMs could result in derivative works “that are based on, imitate, summarize or paraphrase” its books, which could harm its market.

OpenAI, according to the complaint, could have trained GPT on public domain works instead of incorporating copyrighted material without paying a licensing fee.

The edge contacted OpenAI for comment.

This is the latest lawsuit against OpenAI by popular authors, Martin wrote game of ThronesGrisham’s numerous books have been made into movies, etc., claiming copyright infringement. Incredible adventures of Kavalier and Clay Writer Michael Chabon and others sued the company for using their books to train GPT in early September. Comedian Sarah Silverman and authors Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey also sought legal action against OpenAI and Meta, while Paul Tremblay and Mona Awad He filed his complaint in June..

Generative AI companies have had to navigate the copyright minefield several times, and lawsuits have also been filed against AI imaging platforms. Microsoft, which is partnering with OpenAI, announced that it will face legal pressure if commercial users of its Copilot AI service are sued.