Court Allows Authors’ Copyright Lawsuit Against OpenAI and Microsoft to Proceed

A collective lawsuit from a group of prominent authors, including George R.R. Martin, against OpenAI and Microsoft has moved forward in court. Federal Judge Sidney Stein in Manhattan ruled that the lawsuit concerning the illegal use of their works to train neural networks can proceed on its merits.

The authors accuse the tech companies of using their books to train artificial intelligence without obtaining permission or providing compensation. As key evidence, the plaintiffs cited an example where the ChatGPT bot, upon request, created an alternative continuation for George R.R. Martin’s book “A Clash of Kings.” The AI proposed its own sequel titled “A Dance with Shadows,” which included new characters (such as Lady Elara, a relative of the Targaryens) and plot lines stylistically and substantively similar to the original “A Song of Ice and Fire” saga.

Judge Stein recognized that such AI-generated text possesses sufficient similarity to Martin’s world for the case to be considered by a jury. The ruling states that a “reasonable jury could conclude that the generated texts are substantially similar to the plaintiffs’ original works.”

However, a final verdict has not yet been reached. The court must still determine whether OpenAI and Microsoft can defend themselves using the “fair use” doctrine, which allows for the limited use of copyrighted materials without a license for certain purposes.

A similar lawsuit was previously concluded against the AI company Anthropic, resulting in a settlement of $1.5 billion being paid to authors whose works were used to train their model without permission.