Generative Artificial Intelligence 101: Copyright Infringement Lawsuits Ahead for Tech Companies
Technology companies are facing a series of lawsuits alleging copyright infringement.
Throughout our Artificial Intelligence 101 blog series, we’ve discussed the hypothetical legal troubles Generative AI can cause. To wrap things up, our final blog post is an overview of the many pending lawsuits that could decide the legal future of Generative AI.
OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, is likely the most well-known company in the field of Generative AI technology. This recognition, however, has resulted in numerous lawsuits alleging copyright infringement and DMCA violations against the company. OpenAI has not disclosed publicly what specific data it uses to train ChatGPT, but it has admitted to using copyrighted materials as part of its input training data. Other technology companies, such as Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram and has created Generative AI programs of its own, as well as Microsoft, which has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI, have also been named as defendants in various lawsuits on this issue.
One of the first of these lawsuits in the U.S., however, was the Getty Images lawsuit filed against Stability AI, which owns Stable Diffusion, an AI image-generation system. In January 2023, Getty Images sued Stability AI, accusing it of misusing more than 12 million Getty photos to train its Stable Diffusion. This U.S. lawsuit followed another that Getty Images filed against Stability AI in the United Kingdom. Getty Images generates much of its profits by licensing images from its vast database, including “millions of suitable digital assets” to other “leading technology innovators” for AI-related purposes. By failing to obtain or even request a license or paying a licensing fee, Stability AI could be liable for copyright infringement, as Getty alleges that images generated by Stable Diffusion compete with those owned by Getty. The suit further claims trademark infringement, as Getty alleges that Stable Diffusion has produced output images with Getty’s watermark potentially causing consumer confusion.[1]
Lawsuits against OpenAI have been filed in rapid succession. In September 2023, over a dozen prominent authors, along with the Author’s Guild, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft.[2] Their complaint alleged that the use of their copyright protected material to train OpenAI’s Generative AI programs can result in the creation of “derivative works” that mimic the authors’ books, which could potentially harm the market for the authors’ works. The writers maintain they were neither compensated nor notified by OpenAI. That same month, authors Michael Chabon, Ayelet Waldman, and Matthew Klam sued both OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringement.[3]
Then this year in February, the New York Times followed and filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI, also on claims of copyright infringement, alleging that millions of New York Times articles were used to train programs that now generate outputs that recite NYT content verbatim, closely summarize the New York Times’s articles, mimic the paper’s expressive style, and falsely attribute outputs to the Times.[4] [5] The same day as the New York Times, Raw Story and The Intercept filed nearly identical lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging violations under the DMCA.[6]
With so many pending lawsuits in progress, there will likely be a substantial amount of case law addressing copyright and the use of Generative AI in the coming years. Until these cases are decided, however, use of Generative AI that has been trained using copyright protected materials (essentially any existing Generative AI model) remains legally murky, with no clear determination as to what generated output is legally useable. Also, so far, all pending lawsuits have targeted technology companies that create and train the Generative AI programs. It is highly likely that once these cases have been resolved, copyright holders will shift their focus towards Generative AI users with deep pockets.
Learn more about Generative AI in our complete Generative Artificial Intelligence 101 blog series.
[1] Brittain, Blake “Getty Images lawsuit says Stability AI misused photos to train AI” Reuters (2023) https://www.reuters.com/legal/getty-images-lawsuit-says-stability-ai-misused-photos-train-ai-2023-02-06/ (last visited Jul 9, 2024).
[2] Authors Guild v. OpenAI Inc., No. 1:23-cv-08292, Southern District of New York. This case has since been consolidated into Alter v. OpenAI Inc., No. 1:23-cv-10211, along with Basbanes v. Microsoft Corporation, No. 1:24-cv-00084.
[3] Chabon v. OpenAI, Inc., No. 3:23-cv-04625, Northern District of California
[4] Grynbaum, Michael M. and Mac, Ryan “The Times Sues OpenAI and Microsoft Over A.I. Use of Copyrighted Work” New York Times (2024), www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-times-open-ai-microsoft-lawsuit.html (last visited Jul 9, 2024).
[5] New York Times Company v. Microsoft Corporation et al, No. 1:23-cv-11195, Southern District of New York
[6] The Intercept Media, Inc. v. OpenAI, Inc., No. 1:24-cv-01515, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York; Raw Story Media, Inc. v. OpenAI, Inc., No. 1:24-cv-01514, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
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