Authors Sue Major AI Firms Over Alleged Copyright Infringement
In a significant legal move, a coalition of authors, including John Carreyrou—renowned for exposing the Theranos scandal in his book Bad Blood—has initiated a lawsuit against six leading artificial intelligence companies: Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Meta, xAI, and Perplexity. The authors allege that these companies have utilized pirated versions of their literary works to train AI models, thereby infringing upon their copyrights.
This lawsuit emerges in the wake of a prior class action against Anthropic, where similar allegations were made. In that case, the court determined that while it was permissible for AI companies to train models using pirated books, the act of pirating the books themselves was illegal. Consequently, a settlement was proposed, offering eligible authors approximately $3,000 each from a $1.5 billion fund. However, many authors found this resolution unsatisfactory, arguing that it failed to hold AI companies accountable for profiting from unauthorized use of their works, which have contributed to generating substantial revenues.
The current lawsuit contends that the proposed settlement appears to favor the AI companies over the creators. The plaintiffs assert that large language model (LLM) companies should not be allowed to resolve numerous high-value claims at minimal costs, thereby avoiding the true repercussions of their extensive and deliberate infringements.
This legal action underscores the growing tension between content creators and AI developers. As AI technologies advance, they increasingly rely on vast datasets, often sourced from existing works, to enhance their capabilities. Authors and other content creators are raising concerns about the ethical and legal implications of such practices, emphasizing the need for fair compensation and recognition of their intellectual property rights.
The outcome of this lawsuit could set a precedent for how AI companies engage with copyrighted materials in the future. It also highlights the necessity for clear guidelines and regulations that balance technological innovation with the rights and interests of content creators.
