3 6 Ke·2025-12-23 11:56Core Viewpoint - A group of writers led by Pulitzer Prize winner John Carreyrou has filed a class-action lawsuit against six major AI companies, including OpenAI, Google, Meta, Anthropic, xAI, and Perplexity AI, accusing them of "willful infringement" by training their models on pirated books [1] Group 1: Allegations and Legal Context - The lawsuit centers on a "dual infringement chain," where the six companies allegedly downloaded millions of pirated books from illegal shadow libraries like LibGen and Z-Library, using these works for training large language models and commercial purposes, creating an illegal closed loop of "pirated acquisition - model training - commercial monetization" [1] - If the jury finds the infringement to be willful, each infringing work could result in damages of up to $150,000 [2] - OpenAI has faced at least 14 copyright lawsuits, making it a frequent target in the industry [2] Group 2: Previous Legal Issues - The New York Times has previously sued Microsoft and OpenAI for copyright infringement, claiming that millions of its articles were used to train AI models like Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT, seeking damages for billions of dollars and the destruction of any AI models using its copyrighted materials [2] - In June 2023, OpenAI announced it was appealing a lawsuit from The New York Times regarding the indefinite retention of consumer data, arguing that the request violates user privacy commitments [2] - The New York Times also issued a "cease and desist" notice to Perplexity AI, demanding it stop accessing and using its content [2] Group 3: Industry-Wide Implications - Google received a cease-and-desist letter from Disney for allegedly copying a large volume of copyrighted works for AI development [3] - Meta has faced multiple infringement warnings from Hollywood studios regarding its model training data [3] - Anthropic was notably ordered to pay $1.5 billion in a settlement for using pirated books to train its Claude model, with a court ruling that "pirated data is not subject to fair use" [3] - The California Northern District Court has accepted 25 AI copyright cases, accounting for over half of similar cases nationwide, with potential rulings that could set key precedents for the legality of AI training data [3]