The Authors Guild along with famous writers like “A Game of Thrones” novelist George R.R. Martin, are suing Open AI over copyright infringement, court documents from Tuesday show.
The class action lawsuit, which was filed in the Southern District of New York, alleged that Open AI “copied Plaintiffs’ works wholesale, without permission or consideration” and that the algorithms behind the software aided in the “systematic theft on a mass scale” of the author’s works.
The president of the Authors Guild, Maya Shanbhag Lang, released a statement saying that the organization “serves to protect the literary landscape and the profession of writing” and emphasized that the lawsuit was “merely the beginning of our battle to defend authors from theft by OpenAI and other generative AI.” (RELATED: REPORT: ‘Game Of Thrones’ Creator Signs Gigantic Contract With HBO)
We have organized a lawsuit against OpenAI for copyright infringement of their works of fiction on behalf of a class of authors whose works have been used to train GPT. Plaintiffs incl John Grisham, Jodi Picoult, Victor LaValle, George R.R. Martin & more.https://t.co/1laaRbRCyC
— The Authors Guild (@AuthorsGuild) September 20, 2023
The rise of new AI resources ranging from ChatGPT to Dall-E means there is very little legal precedent for dealing with these tools, IGN reported. However, a U.S. judge found in August that art created entirely from artificial intelligence (AI) was not copyrightable.
Creative industries like acting, voice acting, and screenwriting have struggled to deal with competition by AI systems, IGN reported. This competition between AI and humans within those industries was a prominent reason for the Hollywood Writers strike, The Hilltop reported.
OpenAI told IGN that the company respects “the rights of writers and authors” while maintaining that they too ought to “benefit from AI technology.”
“We’re having productive conversations with many creators around the world, including the Authors Guild, and have been working cooperatively to understand and discuss their concerns about AI,” OpenAI added, the outlet noted.