New York Times Journalist Files Lawsuit Against Google, xAI, and OpenAI for Chatbot Training Practices
An investigative reporter, renowned for uncovering fraud at the Silicon Valley blood-testing startup Theranos, has initiated a lawsuit against several major tech companies, including Elon Musk’s xAI, Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Meta Platforms, and Perplexity. The suit, filed on Monday, alleges that these companies used copyrighted books without permission to train their artificial intelligence systems.
John Carreyrou, a New York Times reporter and the author of “Bad Blood,” filed the lawsuit in a California federal court alongside five other writers. They accuse the AI companies of pirating their literary works and incorporating them into the large language models (LLMs) that drive the companies’ chatbots.
This lawsuit is part of a growing trend, with several authors and copyright holders taking legal action against tech firms over the unauthorized use of their works in AI training. Notably, this case marks the first time xAI has been named as a defendant.
As of now, spokespeople for the defendants have not responded to requests for comments regarding the lawsuit.
In contrast to other ongoing cases, the writers have opted not to pursue a larger class action lawsuit. They believe that such a collective approach tends to favor defendants, allowing them to negotiate a single settlement with multiple plaintiffs.
“LLM companies should not be able to so easily extinguish thousands upon thousands of high-value claims at bargain-basement rates,” the complaint asserts.
In August, Anthropic reached a significant settlement in a related AI-training copyright dispute, agreeing to pay $1.5 billion to a group of authors who claimed the company had pirated millions of books. The current lawsuit indicates that members of that class will receive only “a tiny fraction (just 2%) of the Copyright Act’s statutory ceiling of $150,000” for each infringed work.
The complaint was filed by attorneys from the law firm Freedman Normand Friedland, including Kyle Roche, who was profiled by Carreyrou in a 2023 New York Times article.
During a November hearing concerning the Anthropic class action, U.S. District Judge William Alsup criticized a separate law firm co-founded by Roche for encouraging authors to opt out of the settlement in pursuit of “a sweeter deal.” Roche declined to comment on the matter on Monday.
Carreyrou later informed the judge that the act of stealing books to develop AI was Anthropic’s “original sin,” arguing that the settlement did not adequately address the issue.
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An investigative reporter, renowned for uncovering fraud at the Silicon Valley blood-testing startup Theranos, has initiated a lawsuit against several major tech companies, including Elon Musk’s xAI, Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Meta Platforms, and Perplexity. The suit, filed on Monday, alleges that these companies used copyrighted books without permission to train their artificial intelligence systems.
John Carreyrou, a New York Times reporter and the author of “Bad Blood,” filed the lawsuit in a California federal court alongside five other writers. They accuse the AI companies of pirating their literary works and incorporating them into the large language models (LLMs) that drive the companies’ chatbots.
This lawsuit is part of a growing trend, with several authors and copyright holders taking legal action against tech firms over the unauthorized use of their works in AI training. Notably, this case marks the first time xAI has been named as a defendant.
As of now, spokespeople for the defendants have not responded to requests for comments regarding the lawsuit.
In contrast to other ongoing cases, the writers have opted not to pursue a larger class action lawsuit. They believe that such a collective approach tends to favor defendants, allowing them to negotiate a single settlement with multiple plaintiffs.
“LLM companies should not be able to so easily extinguish thousands upon thousands of high-value claims at bargain-basement rates,” the complaint asserts.
In August, Anthropic reached a significant settlement in a related AI-training copyright dispute, agreeing to pay $1.5 billion to a group of authors who claimed the company had pirated millions of books. The current lawsuit indicates that members of that class will receive only “a tiny fraction (just 2%) of the Copyright Act’s statutory ceiling of $150,000” for each infringed work.
The complaint was filed by attorneys from the law firm Freedman Normand Friedland, including Kyle Roche, who was profiled by Carreyrou in a 2023 New York Times article.
During a November hearing concerning the Anthropic class action, U.S. District Judge William Alsup criticized a separate law firm co-founded by Roche for encouraging authors to opt out of the settlement in pursuit of “a sweeter deal.” Roche declined to comment on the matter on Monday.
Carreyrou later informed the judge that the act of stealing books to develop AI was Anthropic’s “original sin,” arguing that the settlement did not adequately address the issue.
Interested in Lawsuits?
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