Comedian Sarah Silverman Files Lawsuit Against OpenAI's ChatGPT, Alleging Copyright Infringement

Comedian Sarah Silverman is suing the company behind ChatGPT, alleging copyright infringement of her book.

Silverman is one of three authors who are suing OpenAI, the company that created the AI chatbot, according to the court documents seen by Insider.

The three plaintiffs allege that when prompted, ChatGPT will produce a summary of their works. They claim this is copyright infringement, as they did not consent to their books being fed to ChatGPT.

ChatGPT is a generative AI model trained by ingesting vast amounts of information from websites, news articles and books, and other sources.

When prompted by users, it can produce convincingly natural responses that mimic the experience of chatting with a human.

Silverman and the other plaintiffs allege that OpenAI "benefit commercial and profit richly" from their copyrighted works and multiple other copyrighted materials.

OpenAI did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, which was sent outside of normal working hours.

Court documents. Sarah Silverman brings case against AI company, ChatGPT. Court documents

The work in question is Silverman's book "The Bedwetter," a memoir by actress and comedian, which she owns a registered copyright.

The other plaintiffs are writer Christopher Golden, whose copyrighted books include "Ararat," a supernatural thriller, and writer Richard Kadrey, whose copyrighted books include the dark, urban fantasy "Sandman Slim."

They are asking for a jury trial and to be awarded statutory and other damages.

While OpenAI has never revealed what books are part of the datasets it feeds to ChatGPT, the court document alleges that many are likely to come from "shadow library" websites that illegally aggregate content that is otherwise not readily accessible.

Daniel Gervais, a law professor at Vanderbilt University, previously told Insider that he anticipates more lawsuits involving copyright law and generative AI in the future.

The Authors Guild, a US-based advocacy group that supports the working rights of writers, published an open letter in June calling on the chief executives of Big Tech and AI companies to "obtain permission" from writers to use their copyrighted work in training generative AI programs and "compensate writers fairly."