A California court has partially rejected the lawsuit brought by Sarah Silverman against OpenAI regarding copyright infringement.
The legal action in question, initiated by the lawyers of the American comedian and actress during 2023, is based on the belief of several authors that ChatGPT is drawing on their intellectual properties when used in chatbots. In addition to Silverman, they also participate in the lawsuit Christopher Golden, Richard Kadrey e Paul Tremblay.
The document presented by the lawyers seeks to leverage six possible complaints, with OpenAI requesting the rejection of all but one, the main one. The aforementioned court rejected all requests except the main one, namely the accusation of direct copyright infringement.
Sarah Silverman lawsuit against OpenAI: the accusation of direct copyright infringement remains standing
In the sentence, the judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín dismissed claims of indirect copyright infringement, DMCA violations, negligence, and unjust enrichment.
The court, in fact, did not consider the accusations regarding alleged applicants of illegal commercial practices and fraudulent conduct linked to unfair competition to be founded. It instead upheld the unfair competition charge that OpenAI did not ask permission to use artists’ work for commercial profit.
Martínez-Olguín also stressed that the plaintiffs “They have not claimed that ChatGPT outputs contain direct copies of the copyrighted books” is that “They must show substantial similarity between the outputs and the copyrighted materials“.
While OpenAI has won some partial victories in court, the main complaint that ChatGPT directly infringed copyright remains on the table, which is no small feat. It should also be considered that, for OpenAI, this is not the only legal dispute it is dealing with.
Still in the context of copyright, other lawsuits have been filed by authors such as George R.R. Martin e John Grishamwithout taking into account how the company has been cited, again for copyright issues, even by New York Times.