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George R.R. Martin and other authors sue OpenAI for copyright infringement

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  • Julia was twenty-six years old... and she worked, as he had guessed, on the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department. She enjoyed her work, which consisted chiefly in running and servicing a powerful but tricky electric motor... She could describe the whole process of composing a novel, from the general directive issued by the Planning Committee down to the final touching-up by the Rewrite Squad. But she was not interested in the final product. She "didn't much care for reading," she said. Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.

  • This is the best summary I could come up with:


    According to the complaint, OpenAI “copied plaintiffs’ works wholesale, without permission or consideration” and fed the copyrighted materials into large language models.

    The authors added that OpenAI’s LLMs could result in derivative work “that is based on, mimics, summarizes, or paraphrases” their books, which could harm their market.

    OpenAI, the complaint said, could have trained GPT on works in the public domain instead of pulling in copyrighted material without paying a licensing fee.

    This is the latest lawsuit against OpenAI from popular authors — Martin wrote Game of Thrones, Grisham’s many books have been turned into films, and so on — alleging copyright infringement.

    Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay writer Michael Chabon and others sued the company for using their books to train GPT earlier in September.

    Comedian Sarah Silverman and authors Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey also sought legal action against OpenAI and Meta, while Paul Tremblay and Mona Awad filed their complaint in June.


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151 comments