Title: OpenAI and Meta Face Lawsuits by Authors: Here’s Why
In an era where generative AI tools have dazzled the world with their ability to create diverse content, there arises a new challenge related to copyright infringement. OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, and Meta, the company behind LLaMA, now find themselves facing lawsuits from authors like Sarah Silverman, Christopher Golden, and Richard Kadrey.
Generative AI tools have the remarkable power to produce novels, essays, music, and even movie scripts. However, these tools heavily rely on existing human-generated content for training purposes. Unfortunately, this often includes copyrighted materials, which raises issues of permission and legality. And so, the lawsuits ensue.
The authors have each individually filed lawsuits against OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Meta’s LLaMA, claiming that books play a significant role in training generative AI models. They allege that both ChatGPT and LLaMA were trained on illicit datasets obtained from shadow libraries such as Z-Library, Library Genesis, Bibliotik, and Sci-Hub. The plaintiffs assert that their own books are present within the datasets sourced from these sites.
To support their claims of copyright infringement, the authors presented various pieces of evidence. They state that ChatGPT summarises their books without seeking permission to reproduce the content. In the case of Meta, they refer to a published paper outlining LLaMA’s training data, which reveals the use of the BiblioTik dataset.
Sarah Silverman, Christopher Golden, and Richard Kadrey stress that they did not provide consent for their books to be used as training materials for OpenAI’s and Meta’s AI models. Consequently, they are bringing forth allegations of copyright infringement, unjust enrichment, negligence, and unfair competition. Seeking a jury trial, they aim to attain statutory damages and restitution of profits, among other forms of redress. These lawsuits were officially filed in the US District Court of Northern California.
Meanwhile, the ChatGPT platform’s exponential growth seems to be experiencing a slowdown. Recent data from Similarweb, an analytics firm, reveals that ChatGPT’s website traffic witnessed a 9.7% decline in June, marking the first-ever decrease in visitor numbers since its inception. Users also spent 8.5% less time interacting with the chatbot. Nonetheless, it is important to note that the ChatGPT website remains the most frequently visited standalone AI platform.
In conclusion, the clash between generative AI tools and copyright infringement claims has thrust OpenAI and Meta into a legal battle with authors who allege unauthorized use of their books for training purposes. The outcome of these lawsuits could potentially shape the future of AI content creation.
