'Game of Thrones' Author George R.R. Martin Among Writers Suing OpenAi

Author George R.R. Martin is one of the high-profile plaintiffs in a lawsuit against OpenAI, the company that created the popular text-generating program ChatGPT. Martin, along with 16 other writers, claims that OpenAI violated his copyrights by feeding his books into its "large language models" to develop this program. The authors are calling it a "systematic theft on a mass scale," according to a report by CBS News.

The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday, Sept. 19 in the Southern District of New York on behalf of the Authors Guild. A total of 17 authors were named as plaintiffs, including John Grisham, Elin Hilderbrand, Jodi Picoult, Scott Turow, David Baldacci, Michael Connelly, Jonathan Franzen and George Saunders. They point to reports on how OpenAI created the "Large Language Models" (LLMs) that are used to "train" programs like ChatGPT and develop them into usable services. Their attorneys say that using their books in this way is a clear violation of copyright law, not to mention an invitation for scammers to flood the market with ChatGPT-generated novels.

"ChatGPT and the LLMs underlying it seriously threaten the livelihood of the very authors – including plaintiffs here, as discussed specifically below – on whose works they were 'trained' without the authors' consent," the lawsuit says. "ChatGPT is being used to generate low-quality ebooks, impersonating authors and displacing human-authored books."

In the case of Martin, the lawsuit points to the specific case of Liam Swayne, a programmer who tried to use ChatGPT to write the long-awaited finale of Martin's series A Song of Ice and Fire, which was adapted into HBO's Game of Thrones. Swayne posted the results online. Aside from competing with Martin's genuine work, the lawsuit argues that this is proof that ChatGPT's LLMs were "trained" on Martin's work without paying licensing fees.

"When prompted, ChatGPT accurately generated summaries of several of the Martin infringed works, including summaries for Martin's novels 'A Game of Thrones,' 'A Clash of Kings,' and 'A Storm of Swords,' the first three books in the series A Song of Ice and Fire," the lawsuit says. "ChatGPT could not have generated the results described above if OpenAI's LLMs had not ingested and been 'trained' on the Martin infringed works."

The authors are seeking damages for each infringed work – possibly up to $150,000 per book. They are also asking the courts to prohibit OpenAI and other developers from using copyrighted works for their LLMs without "express authorization" from the writers. So far, OpenAI has not commented publicly on the lawsuit.