Last year, there was considerable media attention when Sarah Silverman, a comedian and author, along with several other distinguished writers, initiated legal proceedings against ChatGPT, the AI model developed by OpenAI, alleging unauthorized use of their literary works. Now, a comparable legal dispute has arisen involving chip manufacturer Nvidia. According to a report by Reuters, Nvidia is facing legal action from three authors—Brian Keene, Abdi Nazemian, and Stewart O'Nan—who allege that the company unlawfully employed their copyrighted books to train its NeMo AI platform, renowned for its artificial intelligence capabilities.
These authors contend that their literary creations were incorporated into a dataset comprising approximately 196,640 books, which was utilized in the training process for NeMo to replicate everyday written language. However, this dataset was removed in October following reports of copyright infringement.
In a class action lawsuit filed in the San Francisco federal court on Friday night, the authors argue that Nvidia's decision to remove the dataset constitutes an admission of using their copyrighted material for NeMo's training, thus infringing upon their copyrights.
The authors are seeking unspecified damages on behalf of individuals in the United States whose copyrighted works contributed to the training of NeMo's large language models over the past three years.
The lawsuit highlights notable works such as Keene's 2008 novel "Ghost Walk," Nazemian's 2019 novel "Like a Love Story," and O'Nan's 2007 novella "Last Night at the Lobster."
This legal action against Nvidia is reminiscent of similar lawsuits filed against OpenAI. Last year in September, a group of US-based authors, including Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in federal court in San Francisco, accusing the company of misusing their writings to train ChatGPT. The lawsuit alleged that OpenAI utilized the authors' works without permission to teach ChatGPT to respond to human text prompts, emphasizing the crucial role of these works in training the AI model due to their exemplary quality and extensive length.
Furthermore, in July 2023, Sarah Silverman, along with two other authors, sued OpenAI over copyright infringement, claiming that ChatGPT summarized the contents of their books without their consent. Writer Christopher Golden and author Richard Kadrey also joined the lawsuit, seeking a jury trial and monetary damages.
