OpenAI Sued for Training AI System on Copyrighted Material
By Movieguide® Contributor
Another legal battle regarding companies training artificial intelligence on copyrighted materials is brewing.
“OpenAI and Microsoft have been sued by another news organization for using articles to train its artificial intelligence systems, this time by the Center for Investigative Reporting,” The Hollywood Reporter wrote.
The lawsuit indicates that OpenAI and Microsoft “copied, used, abridged, and displayed” the content from the Center for Investigative Reporting without consent.
OpenAI’s business is “built on the exploitation of copyrighted works,” the lawsuit claims.
The Center for Investigative Reporting is a nonprofit organization built on producing “credible and relevant media.”
“We publish our multiplatform work on our website, public radio program, podcast, and social media platforms, reaching over a million people weekly. We also produce documentaries and television news stories and partner with local and regional outlets to support and empower local news coverage. Our reporting ignites real-world change, from legal investigations to new laws and policy changes,” the organization says on its website.
However, Microsoft and OpenAI “started vacuuming up our stories to make their product more powerful” without the CIR’s permission, Monika Bauerlein, CEO of Mother Jones and Center for Investigative Reporting chief executive, explained.
“This free rider behavior is not only unfair, it is a violation of copyright,” she added.
Bauerlein noted that when AI steals CIR’s work, it damages the organization’s reputation with its audience.
“It’s immensely dangerous. Our existence relies on users finding our work valuable and deciding to support it,” she said.
“When people can no longer develop that relationship with our work, when they no longer encounter Mother Jones or Reveal, then their relationship is with the AI tool,” she added.
“According to the complaint, more than 17,000 webpage addresses from Mother Jones are included in OpenAI’s data set to train AI products from the company and Microsoft. This allows ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot, the lawsuit alleges, to provide responses that ‘mimic copyright-protected works of journalism’ when a user asks about a current event,” THR wrote.
Movieguide® previously reported that Meta is using users’ data to train its AI models:
Meta recently revealed it is using public data on its platforms to train its AI, something that is making some users uncomfortable. Thankfully, there are ways to stop the tech giant from using your data.
Meta’s use of its platform’s data was revealed due to laws in the EU that require companies to disclose where they parse data and allow users to opt out of data collection. While these same protections don’t exist for U.S. users, Meta has signaled that it only takes data from public accounts. Thus, users can protect their data by making their accounts private.
While this change will protect your data, it isn’t a perfect fix, as changing an account to private only allows approved accounts to see your posts. While American users want an easier way to opt out of data collection, Meta likely won’t introduce this feature unless federally mandated.
“Across the internet, public information is being used to train AI. This is not unique to our services. We’re committed to building AI responsibly and believe it’s important that people understand how we train the models that power our generative AI product,” a Meta spokesperson told Fox News.
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