Microsoft and OpenAI are facing a class-action lawsuit for copyright infringement, raising concerns about the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on media and technology. Authors Nicholas Basbanes and Nicholas Gage have filed the lawsuit, seeking up to $150,000 per infringement, accusing the companies of using their works without consent in the development of AI technology. This lawsuit adds to OpenAI’s previous legal battles with prominent authors and The New York Times, further highlighting ethical concerns surrounding AI’s use in news creation and its potential impact on the media and technology industries.
The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, alleges that Microsoft and OpenAI have consistently appropriated copyrighted material from a group of writers, comparing their actions to common thieves. Basbanes and Gage, both non-fiction authors, claim that their works have been used without permission to build a highly profitable AI system. They are seeking damages for each infringed work.
The crux of the lawsuit revolves around OpenAI’s AI system, which allegedly relies on absorbing a vast amount of written content, including books by Basbanes and Gage. At present, neither Microsoft nor OpenAI has released an official statement addressing the allegations.
This legal battle is just one of several conflicts faced by OpenAI, as they have previously encountered lawsuits from the Authors’ Guild and a group of renowned authors. Additionally, authors including Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham, George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult, Michael Chabon, David Henry Hwang, Rachel Louise Snyder, and Ayelet Waldman have also initiated legal action over copyright concerns.
OpenAI and Microsoft are also involved in another legal dispute with The New York Times. The newspaper has accused them of training AI models on a dataset that contains copyrighted NYT articles, further violating intellectual property rights.
This lawsuit raises important questions about the role of AI in the news industry and the ethical and legal challenges it presents. Its implications extend to both the media and tech sectors, potentially reshaping how generative AI functions and significantly impacting the creation, consumption, and monetization of news content. It remains to be seen how this legal confrontation will unfold, but its outcome will undoubtedly have far-reaching consequences in the AI landscape.
