OpenAI Has Denied The Allegations of Infringement in Author Copyright Cases

OpenAI defends AI training in court, citing fair use, amid lawsuits by authors alleging unauthorized use of copyrighted material to train models like ChatGPT.

on Aug 29, 2024

OpenAI has replied in federal court in California to accusations that it used the work of authors such as Michael Chabon, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and comedian Sarah Silverman without permission to train its AI language model.

The Microsoft-supported Artificial Intelligence firm stated in its response to the complaints on Tuesday that it utilizes copyrighted content for fair use to educate models like the one powering its popular chatbot ChatGPT in creating original material.

OpenAI noted in its filing that the AI training process does not involve transmitting protected content to a human audience but aims to generate new material based on an understanding of language, reasoning, and the world.

Copyright holders, including authors, news outlets, and music publishers, have brought significant legal actions against tech companies over the alleged unauthorized use of their work to train text-based generative AI systems.

Meta Platforms and Microsoft-funded OpenAI have both managed to have some of the claims dismissed by judges. However, courts have not yet addressed the fundamental issue of whether the use of material scraped from the internet to train AI systems violates copyrights on a large scale.

Tech companies have argued that AI (Artificial Intelligence) training is protected by the fair use doctrine and have expressed worries about the potential impact of these lawsuits on the growing AI industry.

The case is In re OpenAI ChatGPT Litigation, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, No. 3:23-cv-03223.

For the authors: Joseph Saveri of the Joseph Saveri Law Firm, Bryan Clobes of Cafferty Clobes Meriwether & Sprengel; Matthew Butterick

For OpenAI: Joe Gratz of Morrison & Foerster, Andy Gass of Latham & Watkins