The Battle Between Authors and Tech Giants Continues
A recent lawsuit has been filed by a group of writers, including John Carreyrou, the whistleblower behind the infamous Theranos scandal, and author of “Bad Blood”. The lawsuit targets tech giants such as Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Meta, xAI, and Perplexity, alleging that these companies have been using pirated copies of books to train their AI models.
This legal battle is not new, as another group of authors had previously filed a class action suit against Anthropic for similar copyright infringement practices. Despite a ruling that deemed it legal for AI companies to use pirated copies for training purposes, the act of pirating the books themselves was deemed unlawful.
While some authors may receive compensation of around $3,000 from the $1.5 billion Anthropic settlement, many are not satisfied with this outcome. The main issue lies in the fact that AI companies are not being held accountable for profiting off stolen intellectual property, which generates substantial revenue for these tech giants.
The latest lawsuit argues that the proposed settlement with Anthropic primarily benefits the AI companies rather than the creators whose works were unlawfully used. It raises concerns about the ease with which tech companies can settle high-value claims at minimal costs, without facing the true consequences of their actions.
