PVLF 2025

Authors Sue Microsoft and OpenAI, Alleging Misuse of their Work in AI Training.

Authors sue Microsoft & OpenAI alleging copyright violation in AI training. Legal battle unfolds over misuse of literary work in ChatGPT and other AI services.
on Jan 08, 2024

A pair of nonfiction authors sued OpenAI and its financial sponsor Microsoft on Friday in Manhattan federal court, alleging that the company misappropriated their work to train the artificial-intelligence models powering the popular chatbot ChatGPT and other AI-based services.

Writers Nicholas Basbanes and Nicholas Gauge claimed in a proposed class action that the firms violated their copyrights by adding some of their novels in the data used to train OpenAI's GPT big language model.

Representatives from Microsoft and OpenAI did not immediately reply to requests for comment on the complaint.

The complaint follows many others brought by fiction and nonfiction writers, including comedian Sarah Silverman and "Game of Thrones" author George R.R. Martin, against tech companies for allegedly using their work to train AI programmes.

The New York Times also sued OpenAI and Microsoft last week for using its journalists' work to train AI apps.

Basbanes and Gauge are former journalists. Their lawyer, Michael Richter, called it "outrageous" that the firms could utilise their work to "power a new billion-dollar-plus industry without any compensation."