Authors lose intervention bid in NYT OpenAI suit
A New York court ruling denies attempts by California authors to wade into other high-profile suits against OpenAI and Microsoft | Cases concern the allegations of unauthorised use of copyrighted materials to train AI models | Ruling comes after OpenAI and Microsoft fight back and authors face setback.
A New York court has rejected a motion by a group of authors involved in a copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI to halt related cases in New York initiated by The New York Times (NYT) and others.
The ruling, by Judge Sydney Stein at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, denied motions filed by the authors from California looking to intervene in copyright infringement cases against OpenAI and Microsoft to avoid “contradictory rulings”.
However, Stein determined that the authors lacked “a compelling enough” interest in the cases to justify their intervention.
Comedian, actress and writer Sarah Silverman, and horror and sci-fi writer Paul Tremblay, filed their original complaints in Northern California along with other co-plaintiffs in summer 2023.
The cases involved allegations of copyright infringement of their published works related to training OpenAI’s ChatGPT product.
A few months later, NYT accused OpenAI and Microsoft of copyright infringement in December, alleging that they had copied “millions” of its articles to train their chatbots.
The Authors Guild also filed a lawsuit in New York on behalf of several novelists including John Grisham and George R.R. Martin.
Silverman and her co-plaintiffs sought to intervene in the New York cases to either dismiss, stay, or transfer them on the basis their California suit was filed first, and their concerns that the cases could lead to rulings that would “impair their interests”.
Judge upholds autonomy of NY cases
However, Judge Stein's opinion, delivered yesterday, April 1, 2024, outlined several reasons for denying the California plaintiffs' motions to intervene.
It was noted that the California plaintiffs failed to demonstrate a direct and legally protectable interest in the New York cases.
“The California plaintiffs do not have a cognisable interest in the outcome of any New York action,” said the ruling.
The court emphasised that any potential contradictory rulings between the California and New York actions would not “impair” the California plaintiffs' rights, as each group of plaintiffs only had a direct interest in their respective proceedings.
Additionally, the court rejected the argument that the existing parties in the New York cases would not adequately represent the California plaintiffs' interests.
It was determined that there was an identity of interest between the parties, particularly in holding OpenAI accountable for alleged copyright infringement.
Concerning permissive intervention, the court denied the motion, citing concerns about prejudice to the original parties and disruption of the expedited timeline established for the New York cases.
Judge Stein's ruling upheld the autonomy of the New York actions, denying the California plaintiffs' attempts to intervene and influence the proceedings.
OpenAI and Microsoft fight back
The NYT alleged that OpenAI and Microsoft used its copyrighted works to develop and commercialise their generative AI products without obtaining its permission.
However, the pair hit back with OpenAI issuing a strongly worded statement claiming the publication is “not telling the full story”, in January 2024.
OpenAI said the lawsuit came as a “surprise and disappointment”, claiming it first heard about the action by reading it in the NYT.
The artificial intelligence research organisation considered the lawsuit to be “without merit” and offered arguments to counter those put forward by NYT.
While Microsoft hit back at what it described as “the doomsday futurology” of the narrative spun in the NYT lawsuit against the tech giant and Open AI.
In a motion to dismiss part of the suit filed at a federal New York court, Microsoft drew comparisons with the negative implications outlined in the complaint and the “alarmist” opposition to the emergence of the video cassette recorder (VCR) in the 1970s—which allowed users to record television programmes.
Authors suffer setback
Meanwhile, the California authors suffered a setback after a US judge dismissed the majority of their copyright infringement claims against the generative AI giant in February 2024.
The order, issued by US District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, dismissed the authors’ allegations of vicarious copyright infringement; unlawful business practices by infringing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA); negligence; and unjust enrichment.
US District Judge Vince Chhabria criticised the nature of the plaintiffs’ suit in his order from November 2023. While Chhabria allowed the plaintiffs time to amend their claims, he said he would dismiss the claims once more if the authors failed to demonstrate that Llama's output closely resembled their works.
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