The US court system has not yet determined if training AI on copyrighted work falls under the fair use doctrine. OpenAI admitted in a court filing that it would be impossible to train leading AI models without using copyrighted materials. The outcome of Silverman's case against OpenAI mirrors a similar case against Meta, where only the core copyright infringement claims were upheld. Other groups, including The New York Times, a group of nonfiction authors, and The Author’s Guild, are also suing OpenAI for alleged copyright-related violations.
Key takeaways:
- Sarah Silverman's lawsuit against OpenAI will proceed, with the unfair competition portion of the lawsuit still intact. However, some claims, including negligence and DMCA violations, were dismissed by US District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín.
- The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI directly infringed on copyrighted material by training its AI models on Silverman's books and other works without permission.
- The US court system has not yet determined whether training AI large language models on copyrighted work falls under the fair use doctrine. OpenAI admitted in a court filing that it would be impossible to train today's leading AI models without using copyrighted materials.
- Other groups suing OpenAI for alleged copyright-related violations include The New York Times, a collection of nonfiction authors, and The Author’s Guild, which filed its claim alongside authors George R.R. Martin and John Grisham.