Publishers tell court OpenAI training isn't fair use

The Association of American Publishers, the Independent Book Publishers Association, the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers, and the Copyright Clearance Center filed a joint amicus brief in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Publishers Weekly reported. The brief backs author, book publisher, and news publisher plaintiffs seeking summary judgment against OpenAI and Microsoft in the consolidated case known as In Re: Open AI Inc. Copyright Infringement Litigation, which grew out of the original Authors Guild lawsuit.

The brief argues that OpenAI's training on George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire pursued a "research mission" to write the final two books of the series itself, and notes that ChatGPT has already generated sequels the brief says substitute for Martin's forthcoming The Winds of Winter. It also cites a Microsoft employee's conclusion that authors "who were no longer able to sell their books because there are so many substitutive AI-generated books out there" are economic victims of large language models.

In her prepared statement, AAP president and CEO Maria A. Pallante said "the failure of AI companies to pay for the works they need is an unjustified and damaging departure from the operation and integrity of the law," and said authors and publishers have become "integral to producing Open AI's large language models, which absent guardrails and financial participation have the power to diminish both the value of the works copied and the long-term viability of human authorship more generally."