Sarah Silverman sues OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringement
Sarah Silverman, a renowned stand-up comic and author, has filed lawsuits against OpenAI and Meta, accusing them of copyright infringement. The complaints allege that the companies used Silverman’s content without her permission to train their AI models. In addition to Silverman, authors Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey have also joined the legal action, claiming that their works were included in the illegally-acquired datasets used for training.
The lawsuits state that OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Meta’s LLaMA utilized “shadow library” websites, such as Bibliotik, Library Genesis, and Z-Library, which host copyrighted material without proper authorization. These sites are considered illegal as they infringe on authors’ intellectual property rights. When asked to create a dataset, ChatGPT allegedly provided a list of titles from these unauthorized online libraries.
Exhibits presented with the suit demonstrate the AI bot’s ability to summarize books by Silverman, Golden, and Kadrey. However, the lawsuit argues that the AI’s synopses fail to reproduce any copyright management information included by the authors with their published works. Despite generating accurate summaries, the suit claims that ChatGPT retains knowledge of specific works from the training dataset and is capable of producing similar textual content.
The authors’ lawsuit against Meta also highlights the use of illicit websites for training their AI model, LLaMA, which was launched by Meta in February. It points to The Pile dataset, developed by nonprofit AI research group EleutherAI, which the suit alleges includes content derived from the Bibliotik private tracker.
The plaintiffs argue that they did not give consent for their copyrighted books to be used as training material for the AI models. They claim that OpenAI and Meta violated six counts of copyright laws, including negligence, unjust enrichment, and unfair competition. While acknowledging that the damage done to their works cannot be fully compensated or measured in monetary terms, the authors are seeking statutory damages, restitution of profits, and more.
The legal counsel representing Silverman, Golden, and Kadrey have not responded to requests for comment. The Post has also reached out to OpenAI and Meta for their input. It is worth noting that the lawyers representing the authors, Joseph Saveri and Matthew Butterick, have been involved in multiple lawsuits involving authors and AI models, including a recent case against OpenAI’s GitHub Copilot and AI image generator Stable Diffusion.
FAQs:
1. What are the lawsuits filed by Sarah Silverman and other authors about?
Sarah Silverman and authors Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey have filed lawsuits against OpenAI and Meta, accusing them of copyright infringement. They claim that their works were used without permission to train the companies’ AI models.
2. Which AI models are mentioned in the lawsuit?
The lawsuits target OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Meta’s LLaMA, which are language models backed by artificial intelligence.
3. How did the AI models allegedly use the authors’ content?
The AI models reportedly used datasets containing the authors’ works, which were obtained from illegal “shadow library” websites that host copyrighted material without authorization.
4. What are the authors seeking in their lawsuits?
The authors are seeking statutory damages, restitution of profits, and more, although they acknowledge that fully compensating for the damage caused to their works may be challenging.
5. Who are the lawyers representing the plaintiffs?
The legal counsel representing the authors are Joseph Saveri and Matthew Butterick. They have been involved in multiple lawsuits relating to authors and AI models.
Lawsuit Filed by Sarah Silverman Against OpenAI and Meta Alleging Copyright Infringement
Stand-up comic Sarah Silverman, along with authors Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey, has filed separate lawsuits against OpenAI and Meta, accusing them of copyright infringement. The lawsuits claim that the companies used the authors’ works to train their AI models without permission. According to the complaints, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Meta’s LLaMA utilized data from illegal “shadow library” websites like Bibliotik, Library Genesis, and Z-Library to improve their language models. These sites host copyrighted material, making their use illegal. When asked to create a dataset, ChatGPT reportedly generated a list of titles from these illicit online libraries. The lawsuits, filed in San Francisco federal court, also highlight Meta’s use of LLaMA, which allegedly trained on similar illicit sites. Exhibits included in the suit show ChatGPT’s response to summarizing the authors’ books, demonstrating its ability to generate accurate summaries without reproducing copyrighted information. The authors claim that both OpenAI and Meta violated copyright laws and are seeking statutory damages and restitution of profits. Legal counsel for the authors did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and there has been no comment from OpenAI or Meta. It’s worth noting that the authors’ legal representatives have been involved in multiple lawsuits against AI models in the past, including a recent suit against OpenAI’s GitHub Copilot.