A California district judge has ruled in favor of OpenAI, dismissing copyright violation claims made by a group of book authors against the artificial intelligence (AI) giant. The lawsuit alleged that OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, had been trained on pirated copies of the authors’ works without permission. However, Judge Araceli MartÃnez-OlguÃn determined that the authors had failed to prove that ChatGPT’s responses were substantially similar to their original works.
The authors, including well-known figures like Sarah Silverman, Michael Chabon, and Ta-Nehisi Coates, accused OpenAI of violating copyright laws and engaging in unfair business practices. They argued that ChatGPT’s ability to generate text based on their protected works constituted copyright infringement. However, the judge stated that the plaintiffs did not provide sufficient evidence to support these claims.
Judge MartÃnez-OlguÃn dismissed the allegations of direct copying, pointing out that the authors did not demonstrate substantial similarity between ChatGPT’s outputs and the copyrighted materials. The plaintiffs needed to prove that ChatGPT’s responses prominently borrowed from their works, which they failed to do.
The complaint’s claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) were also dismissed by the judge. The authors had accused OpenAI of intentionally removing copyright management information from its training data, but the judge found insufficient evidence to support this charge.
However, Judge MartÃnez-OlguÃn allowed some accusations to proceed under California’s unfair competition law. Specifically, the authors can pursue claims related to the unauthorized use of copyrighted works to train ChatGPT. Allegations of negligence and unjust enrichment were rejected, as the plaintiffs had only alleged intentional acts by OpenAI and failed to explain how the company unjustly benefited from using their works for training ChatGPT.
The authors have until March 13 to consolidate their complaints and amend their arguments if they wish to pursue any of the dismissed claims further. This ruling highlights the challenges faced in determining the legal boundaries concerning AI-generated content and copyright infringement.
