(New York) Writers John Grisham, Jodi Picoult and George R.R. Martin are among 17 authors suing OpenAI for “large-scale systematic theft.” It is the latest in a series of lawsuits filed by writers concerned that artificial intelligence programs are using their work without permission.
In papers filed Tuesday in a New York federal court, the authors alleged “egregious and harmful violations of (their) registered copyrights” and called the ChatGPT program a “massive commercial enterprise” that relies on ” systematic theft on a large scale.”
The suit is brought by the Authors Guild. The list of plaintiffs also includes David Baldacci, Sylvia Day, Jonathan Franzen and Elin Hilderbrand, among others.
“It is imperative that we end this theft, or we will destroy our incredible literary culture, which nourishes many other creative industries in the United States,” Mary Rasenberger, president and CEO of the Guild, said in a statement.
“The best books are usually written by individuals who spend their careers, and indeed their lives, learning and perfecting their craft. To preserve our literature, authors must have the ability to control if and how their works are used by generative AI. »
The suit cites specific ChatGPT searches for each author, such as Mr. Martin’s, which alleges the program generated “an illicit, unauthorized, and detailed preview of a prequel” to Game of Thrones titled A Dawn of Direwolves and used Mr. Martin’s “the same characters from the existing books” in the A Song of Ice and Fire series.
OpenAI’s press office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Earlier this month, a handful of authors, including Michael Chabon and David Henry Hwang, sued OpenAI in San Francisco for “blatant intellectual property infringement.”
In August, OpenAI asked a federal judge in California to dismiss two other similar lawsuits, one involving comedian Sarah Silverman and the other author Paul Tremblay. In a court filing, OpenAI said the allegations “misconstrue the scope of copyright, failing to consider limitations and exceptions (including fair use) that genuinely leave room for innovation such as large language models now at the forefront of artificial intelligence”.
Authors’ reservations about AI led Amazon.com, the nation’s largest book retailer, to change its e-book policy. The online giant now requires writers who want to publish through its Kindle Direct program to notify Amazon in advance that they are including AI-generated material.
Amazon also limits authors to three new self-published books on Kindle Direct per day, in an effort to limit the proliferation of texts about AI.
