In New York, 12 US copyright lawsuits against Openai and Microsoft have been consolidated, with authors and news outlets suing the companies for centralization.
According to a Transfer order from the U.S. Judicial Commission on Multi-District Litigation, centralization can help coordinate findings, streamline pretrial litigation, and eliminate inconsistent rulings.
Prominent authors like Ta-Nehisi Coates, Michael Chabon, Junot Díaz, and comedian Sarah Silverman brought the incident to California, but it will now be moved to New York to join news outlets such as The New York Times. Other authors like John Grisham, George Sounders, Jonathan Franzen, and Jody Picoll are also involved in the lawsuits.
Although most plaintiffs opposed the merger, the transfer order addresses factual questions related to allegations that Openai and Microsoft used copyrighted works without consent to train large-scale language models (LLM) for AI products like Openai’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s copylot.
Openai initially proposed consolidating the cases in Northern California, but the Judiciary Committee moved them to the Southern District of New York for the convenience of parties and witnesses and to ensure a fair and efficient conduct of the case.
High-tech companies argue that using copyrighted works to train AI falls under the doctrine of “fair use,” but many plaintiffs, including authors and news outlets, believe otherwise.
An Openai spokesperson welcomed the development, stating that they train on publicly available data to support innovation. On the other hand, a lawyer representing Daily News looks forward to proving in court that Microsoft and Openai have infringed on their copyrights.
Some of the authors suing Openai have also filed suits against meta for copyright infringement in AI model training. Court filings in January revealed allegations against Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg for approving the use of copyrighted materials in AI training.
Amazon recently announced a new Kindle feature called “Recaps” that uses AI to generate summaries of books for readers. While the company sees it as a convenience for readers, some users have raised concerns about the accuracy of AI-generated summaries.
The UK government is addressing peer and labor concerns about copyright proposals, and companies are being urged to assess the economic impact of their AI plans.
Source: www.theguardian.com
