Part of a Broader Wave of AI Copyright Litigation
This latest suit follows a growing wave of copyright litigation targeting AI models. Previous plaintiffs include comedian Sarah Silverman, novelist Paul G. Tremblay, The New York Times, and prominent authors like John Grisham, George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult, and David Baldacci. Many of these cases have been centralized in the Southern District of New York for pretrial proceedings.
Microsoft’s Role in AI Development Scrutinized
The news outlets allege that Microsoft has been intimately involved in the development, training, and commercialization of OpenAI’s GPT models. Microsoft, which provides the sole cloud infrastructure for OpenAI via Azure, helped design supercomputing systems that powered ChatGPT’s training. The plaintiffs claim that “hundreds of thousands” of copyrighted works were copied multiple times to train the AI models without licenses or compensation.
Removal of Copyright Management Information
The complaint highlights that Microsoft and OpenAI allegedly removed copyright management information (CMI) during the scraping process. Plaintiffs contend the companies knew that CMI would not be retained, effectively concealing the infringement while generating AI outputs based on protected works.
The suit asserts claims for:
