Two nonfiction authors in the U.S. have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging unauthorized use of their work to train artificial intelligence models, including ChatGPT. This legal action follows a similar lawsuit by the New York Times against both companies for unauthorized use of their works in AI training.
In the recent lawsuit filed in a Manhattan federal court on Friday, authors Nicholas Basbanes and Nicholas Gage claim that OpenAI and Microsoft violated their copyrights by using their books to train OpenAI’s GPT large language model without permission or compensation.
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The authors argue that the defendants copied their works to build a lucrative commercial enterprise valued at billions of dollars, known as “AI” or “Artificial Intelligence,” which relies on large language models (LLMs). The LLMs generate human-like responses based on vast amounts of ingested written material. The authors contend that the defendants engaged in a massive and deliberate theft of copyrighted works to obtain high-quality written material for training their AI tools.
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Basbanes and Gage, both professional writers, highlight the limited capital available to fund their research and the self-funding nature of their projects, supplemented by advances from publishers. In contrast, they allege that defendants, with access to substantial capital, simply stole their copyrighted works to build a billion-dollar commercial industry.
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The relief sought by the authors includes an injunction prohibiting the defendants from infringing their copyrights, damages, and an award of additional profits attributable to infringement. They also seek statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work and other legal remedies.
It is noteworthy that Microsoft, through its investments, is part owner of OpenAI, and the companies are facing legal challenges over the use of copyrighted material in training artificial intelligence models. OpenAI, valued at over $80 billion, is reportedly in discussions to raise additional funding, aiming for a valuation at or above $100 billion.
