A collective of literary giants has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, claiming the tech titan built its Megatron artificial intelligence on a foundation of nearly 200,000 pirated books. This legal battle underscores the escalating conflict between intellectual property owners and AI developers over the unauthorized use of creative works. The authors contend that the AI was specifically engineered to emulate the writing styles and thematic elements present in their copyrighted material.
The lawsuit, lodged in New York federal court, aims for an immediate court order to halt Microsoft’s alleged infringement and seeks considerable statutory damages, potentially reaching $150,000 for each book cited in the complaint. The authors emphasize that generative AI, which crafts text, music, and images, relies intrinsically on massive databases to learn and subsequently produce content mirroring its training data. They specifically allege the pirated dataset was crucial for this mimicry.
No immediate response has been forthcoming from Microsoft representatives, and the authors’ legal counsel has refrained from commenting. This legal development aligns with a series of recent high-profile copyright rulings concerning AI, including judgments involving Anthropic and Meta in California, highlighting the ongoing legal uncertainties in the AI landscape.
The legal battlefront concerning AI and copyright is rapidly expanding, encompassing diverse forms of media. Prominent examples include The New York Times’ lawsuit against OpenAI, Dow Jones’ case against Perplexity AI, and actions by major record labels against AI music generators. Tech companies often defend themselves by citing the fair use doctrine, asserting that their AI creates novel, transformative works and that strict copyright enforcement could impede AI industry growth.
Literary Giants Sue Microsoft: AI Training on Allegedly Stolen Books
