Sam Altman-led OpenAI, and Microsoft – its largest investor – have been sued by two non-fiction authors, who alleged in their lawsuit that the companies ‘simply stole’ their copyrighted works to build a ‘billion-dollar artificial intelligence (AI) system.’
The AI leader and the Satya Nadella-led tech giant are already under a New York Times(NYT) lawsuit; the daily has accused them of using ‘millions’ of NYT articles to train their automated chatbots.
What does the latest lawsuit say?
Authors Nicholas Basbanes and Nicholas Gage, who moved a Manhattan federal court on Friday, claim that OpenAI's system relies on being trained by ingesting ‘massive amounts of written material,' including books written by the two former journalists.
Basbanes and Gage said that OpenAI and Microsoft are ‘no different than any other thief' and stated in their suit that they seek to represent a ‘class of writers whose copyrighted work has been systematically pilfered' by the companies.
Estimating the size of that ‘class’ to be ‘tens of thousands of people,’ the suit sought damages of up to $150,000 for each of the duo's work that was ‘infringed.’
{{/usCountry}}Estimating the size of that ‘class’ to be ‘tens of thousands of people,’ the suit sought damages of up to $150,000 for each of the duo's work that was ‘infringed.’
{{/usCountry}}“What OpenAI has done with copyrighted work without permission is pretty outrageous. It is just like a homeowner arguing that they should not have to pay for insulation, plumbing, and other material hidden behind the walls of a house, because it is not visible,” their lawyer Mike Richter, the son-in-law of Basbanes, told CNBC.
OpenAI already sued by…
In September last year, the San Francisco-based creator of ChatGPT, was sued by as many as 17 renowned American non-fiction authors, among them, George RR Martin, whose novel series ‘A Song of Ice and Fire,’ was adapted into HBO's award-winning series ‘Game of Thrones.'
They too accused the AI firm of ‘copyright infringement.’