The lawsuits indicate that OpenAI and Microsoft are aware of potential copyright infringement, pointing to OpenAI's opt-out system for website owners to block content from its web crawlers as evidence. This is not the first time OpenAI has faced such lawsuits, with a previous case involving comedian Sarah Silverman and several authors alleging intentional removal of copyright information from their work. Other companies, including Getty Images and Universal Music Group, are also suing AI developers for similar copyright infringements.
Key takeaways:
- Three news organizations, The Intercept, Raw Story, and AlterNet, have filed lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing them of copyright infringement, including the removal of author, title, and other copyright information while training AI models.
- The lawsuits allege that OpenAI and Microsoft knew that their AI, ChatGPT, would be less popular and generate less revenue if users believed it violated third-party copyrights.
- OpenAI and Microsoft offer legal cover to paying customers in case they get sued for violating copyright for using Copilot or ChatGPT Enterprise. The lawsuits claim that both companies are aware of potential copyright infringement.
- Other companies, such as Getty Images and Universal Music Group, are also suing AI developers, including Stability AI and Anthropic, for copyright infringement related to training models using protected images and recreating lyrics without attribution.