United States writers allege ChatGPT copyright theft

The Authors Guild, representing US writers, has filed a class-action lawsuit against OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, in federal court.

The lawsuit includes more than a dozen best-selling authors, such as Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult, George Saunders, and George R. R. Martin

Similar lawsuits are pending against other generative AI providers like Meta Platforms (Facebook) and Stability AI, claiming unauthorized use of copyrighted material.

OpenAI and other defendants argue that their use of data scraped from the internet falls under US copyright law's definition of fair use, but the specific datasets used are often undisclosed.

The Authors Guild alleges that OpenAI used illegal repositories of pirated books to train ChatGPT, enabling it to generate accurate book summaries and even sequels to existing works.

The complaint highlights the concern that ChatGPT is used to generate low-quality e-books, impersonate authors, and displace human-authored book

The lawsuit underscores the economic threats posed by generative AI, with writers losing work as clients shift to machine-generated content.

Goldman Sachs' analysis estimating that generative AI could replace a significant portion of jobs in the United States and Europe is mentioned as part of the Authors Guild's argument.