Microsoft, OpenAI sued for copyright infringement by nonfiction book authors in class action claim

Two
nonfiction
book
authors
sued


Microsoft
and

OpenAI
in
a
would-be
class
action
complaint
alleging
that
the
defendants
“simply
stole”
the
writers’
copyrighted
works
to
help
build
a
billion-dollar
artificial
intelligence
system.

The
lawsuit,
filed
Friday
in
Manhattan
federal
court,
comes
more
than
a
week
after
The
New
York
Times
sued
Microsoft
and
OpenAI,
which
created
the
AI
chatbot
ChatGPT,
in
a
similar
copyright
infringement
complaint
that
alleges
the
companies
used
the
newspaper’s
content
to
train
large
language
models.

Microsoft
is
an
investor
in
and
supplier
to
OpenAI.

The
new
suit
by
authors
Nicholas
Basbanes
and
Nicholas
Gage
notes
that
on
the
heels
of
the
Times’
suit,
the
defendants
“publicly
acknowledged
that
copyright
owners
like
Plaintiffs
must
be
compensated
for
Defendants’
use
of
their
work.”
The
Times
suit
seeks
“billions
of
dollars”
in
monetary
damages.

Basbanes
and
Gage
said
in
the
suit
that
they
seek
to
represent
a
class
of
writers
“whose
copyrighted
work
has
been
systematically
pilfered
by”
Microsoft
and
OpenAI.

“They’re
no
different
than
any
other
thief,”
the
suit
says.

That
class,
the
suit
says,
would
include
all
people
in
the
U.S.
“who
are
authors
or
legal
beneficial
owners”
of
copyrights
for
works
that
have
or
are
being
used
by
the
defendants
to
“train
their
large
language
models.”
The
suit
estimates
the
size
of
that
class
to
be
tens
of
thousands
of
people.

The
suit
seeks
damages
of
up
to
$150,000
for
each
work
that
the
defendants
infringed.

In
September,
a
group
of
prominent
American
fiction
writers,
among
them
George
R.R.
Martin,
Jonathan
Franzen
and
Michael
Connelly,
sued
OpenAI
for
copyright
infringement,
seeking
to
represent
a
class
of
fiction
writers
in
Manhattan
federal
court.

Mike
Richter,
the
lawyer
representing
Basbanes
and
Gage,
said
their
new
lawsuit
would
cover
a
broader
class
of
plaintiffs
and
for
that
and
other
reasons
should
be
designated
the
lead
class
action
claim
on
the
issue.

Richter
told
CNBC
that
what
OpenAI
has
done
by
copyrighted
work
without
permission
is
“pretty
outrageous,”
and
compared
it
to
a
homeowner
arguing
that
he
should
not
have
to
pay
for
insulation,
plumbing
and
other
material
hidden
behind
the
walls
of
a
house
because
it
is
not
visible.

“For
some
reason,
companies
seem
to
devalue
the
work
of
writers,”
said
the
lawyer,
who
is
Basbanes’
son-in-law.

The
new
lawsuit
says
OpenAI’s
system
relies
on
being
trained
by
ingesting
“massive
amounts
of
written
material,”
which
includes
books
written
by
Basbanes
and
Gage.

CNBC
has
requested
comment
from
Microsoft
and
OpenAI
on
the
new
lawsuit.

Basbanes
is
a
longtime
journalist
whose
works
as
an
author
include
several
books
about
books
and
people
who
collect
them,
among
them
“A
Gentle
Madness:
Bibliophiles,
Bibliomanes,
and
the
Eternal
Passion
for
Books.”

Gage
is
an
investigative
reporter
who
has
worked
for
the
Times
and
The
Wall
Street
Journal.
His
best-selling
memoir
“Eleni,”
which
detailed
his
family’s
experience
in
Greece
during
World
War
II,
was
made
into
a
film
starring
John
Malkovich.

In
1987,
then-President
Ronald
Reagan,
in
a
nationally
televised
address
after
a
summit
with
Soviet
Union
leader
Mikhail
Gorbachev,
cited
“Eleni”
and
Gage
by
name.

Gage
has
written
several
other
books
and
received
credit
as
an
executive
producer
of
the
film
“The
Godfather
III.”

When
it
was
sued
by
the
Times,
OpenAI
said
in
a
statement,
“We
respect
the
rights
of
content
creators
and
owners
and
are
committed
to
working
with
them
to
ensure
they
benefit
from
AI
technology
and
new
revenue
models.”

“Our
ongoing
conversations
with
the
New
York
Times
have
been
productive
and
moving
forward
constructively,
so
we
are
surprised
and
disappointed
with
this
development.
We’re
hopeful
that
we
will
find
a
mutually
beneficial
way
to
work
together,
as
we
are
doing
with
many
other
publishers,”
the
statement
said.

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is
breaking
news.
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updates.

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