A recent lawsuit has been filed in New York federal court by an author whose work was used to train OpenAI’s artificial intelligence model, bringing into focus OpenAI’s partnership with Microsoft to create ChatGPT. This lawsuit highlights the alleged “rampant theft” of copyrighted material to drive one of the most promising startups in Silicon Valley, resulting in OpenAI boasting a valuation close to $90 billion and solidifying Microsoft’s position as a leader in generative AI. The lawsuit emphasizes Microsoft’s critical involvement in providing assistance to create unlicensed copies of authors’ works for training data and commercializing GPT-based technology, with allegations of OpenAI indiscriminately crawling the internet for copyrighted material. This lawsuit comes on the heels of Sam Altman being hired by Microsoft to lead its artificial intelligence research team after his ousting from OpenAI.
In a departure from previous suits involving fiction writers, this lawsuit is brought by Julian Sancton, the author of the nonfiction book “Madhouse at the End of the Earth” and senior features editor at The Hollywood Reporter, focusing mostly on nonfiction and academic journals. The complaint asserts that Microsoft was deeply involved in the training, development, and commercialization of OpenAI’s GPT-based products, providing specialized computing systems necessary for training the model. The complaint also alleges that Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, acknowledged the company’s role in building the compute infrastructure for OpenAI. Departing from other AI company lawsuits, this suit directly accuses both OpenAI and Microsoft of making unlicensed copies of copyrighted works for the purpose of training their AI system.
The allegations raised in the lawsuit are intended to leverage the recent Supreme Court decision in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts v. Goldsmith, which scaled back the scope of the fair use defense to copyright infringement. Sancton argues that OpenAI and Microsoft’s alleged misconduct represents a “manifestly unfair use” as it may lead users to substitute purchasing his book with accessing ChatGPT’s content. The lawsuit claims that the alleged infringement deprived authors of potential licensing agreements and hindered the possibility of blanket licensing practices. Microsoft, on the other hand, has announced its intention to defend customers from any adverse judgments stemming from the use of Azure OpenAI Service and did not immediately respond to a comment on this lawsuit.
According to Sancton, “It is concerning for anyone who writes for a living to see our work be used without permission or compensation to build large language models that capitalize on our expression for profit.” However, a federal judge recently dismissed the bulk of Sarah Silverman’s suit against Meta, suggesting potential challenges for authors in lawsuits against tech companies involving AI models.
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The lawsuit, which also invoked AI company’s attempts to diminish creators’ economic prospects to profit off their works by scraping material from the internet, provides an in-depth exploration of the complicated legal landscape around AI technology and copyright infringement. This case is expected to be closely watched, given its potential to set significant precedents and establish legal boundaries in the growing realm of AI technology and its interactions with copyrighted works.
