Meta, OpenAI Sued by Comedian Over Alleged Copyright Infringement

Comedian Sarah Silverman and two authors have filed copyright infringement lawsuits against Meta Platforms and OpenAI for allegedly using their content without permission to train artificial intelligence language models. 

The proposed class action lawsuits filed by Silverman, Richard Kadrey and Christopher Golden in San Francisco federal court Friday allege Facebook parent company Meta and ChatGPT maker OpenAI used copyrighted material to train chat bots. 

Meta and OpenAI, a private company backed by Microsoft, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday. 

The lawsuits underscore the legal risks developers of chat bots face when using troves of copyrighted material to create apps that deliver realistic responses to user prompts. 

Silverman, Kadrey and Golden allege Meta and OpenAI used their books without authorization to develop their so-called large language models, which their makers pitch as powerful tools for automating tasks by replicating human conversation. 

In their lawsuit against Meta, the plaintiffs allege that leaked information about the company's artificial intelligence business shows their work was used without permission. 

The lawsuit against OpenAI alleges that summaries of the plaintiffs' work generated by ChatGPT indicate the bot was trained on their copyrighted content. 

“The summaries get some details wrong” but still show that ChatGPT “retains knowledge of particular works in the training dataset," the lawsuit says. 

The lawsuits seek unspecified money damages on behalf of a nationwide class of copyright owners whose works were allegedly infringed. 

© Thomson Reuters 2023