Comedian Sarah Silverman sues OpenAI and Meta over copyright infringement

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

According to the suit, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Meta’s LLaMA were trained on illegally-acquired datasets containing their works, which they say were acquired from “shadow library” websites like Bibliotik, Library Genesis, Z-Library, and others, noting the books are “available in bulk via torrent systems.”

When prompted, ChatGPT will summarize their books, infringing on their copyrights, as per the authors. While Silverman’s Bedwetter is the first book shown being summarized by ChatGPT in the exhibits, Golden’s book Ararat and Kadrey’s Sandman Slim are also part of the suit.

As for the separate lawsuit against Meta, it alleges the authors’ books were accessible in datasets Meta used to train its LLaMA models, a quartet of open-source AI Models the company introduced in February.

In both claims, the authors say that both the companies “did not consent to the use of their copyrighted books as training material” for the companies’ AI models.

Their lawsuits each contain six counts of various types of copyright violations, negligence, unjust enrichment, and unfair competition. The authors are looking for statutory damages, restitution of profits, and more.