New filings released in Authors Guild v. OpenAI have disclosed internal documents suggesting executives and employees at OpenAI and Microsoft knowingly broke the law when training their products on copyrighted books, according to a press release from the Authors Guild.
The lawsuit, formally titled Alter v. OpenAI and Microsoft, is a class action case brought on behalf of the Authors Guild and book copyright owners. Lead counsel Justin A. Nelson represents the plaintiffs from law firm Susman Godfrey. The case is part of multidistrict litigation pending in Manhattan.
According to the Authors Guild, the unsealed filings from last Thursday present what the organization characterizes as evidence of the defendants’ “guilty knowledge and reckless actions.” The brief documents AI developers’ awareness of potential damage their actions could inflict on authors, publishers, and American culture, with warnings that “OpenAI’s GPT models pose an existential threat to those who write and publish books.”
The plaintiffs include The Authors Guild along with individual authors David Baldacci, Taylor Branch, Michael Connelly, Sylvia Day, Jonathan Franzen, Christopher Golden, Andrew Sean Greer, John Grisham, David Henry Hwang, Matthew Klam, George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult, Stacy Schiff, James Shapiro, and others.
According to the Authors Guild press release, the filings reveal that OpenAI pursued what it describes as a “mass piracy scheme” despite evidence that the approach would degrade American culture and put thousands of writers out of work. The filings also reference OpenAI using books from a “sketchy Russian website” and documents indicating awareness that AI products “will make people unemployed.”
Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger stated in the press release that the documents show “repeated, intentional decisions to steal books rather than pay for them with full knowledge that their products will destroy the careers of authors.”
The case documents cited are the Class Plaintiffs’ Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (Docket 1982) and Class Plaintiffs’ Corrected Rule 56.1 Statement of Undisputed Material Facts (Docket 1987). The Authors Guild noted that separate briefs were also filed by news media organizations raising similar allegations.
The organization indicated that additional briefing is expected over the coming months, with a hearing anticipated in early 2027.
Key facts
- Authors Guild v. OpenAI unsealed documents allege executives and employees intentionally used copyrighted books to train AI models
- The lawsuit is formally known as Alter v. OpenAI and Microsoft, a class action brought on behalf of the Authors Guild and book copyright owners
- Plaintiffs include the Authors Guild and 15 named individual authors including John Grisham, George R.R. Martin, and Jonathan Franzen
- According to the Authors Guild, filings reference OpenAI using books from a ‘sketchy Russian website’
- The brief reportedly documents internal awareness that AI products would cause unemployment among writers
- The case is pending in Manhattan as part of multidistrict litigation, with a hearing expected in early 2027