Google, OpenAI, xAI, Meta Platforms, Anthropic, and Perplexity have been sued by investigative reporter John Carreyrou and five other authors for allegedly using copyrighted books without permission to train their AI systems. Filed in a California federal court, the lawsuit accuses the companies of feeding authors’ works into large language models that power their chatbots. This case is the first to list Elon Musk’s xAI as a defendant. Unlike other ongoing cases, the writers have chosen not to join a larger class action, arguing that such arrangements allow defendants to settle multiple claims cheaply. The complaint states, “LLM companies should not be able to so easily extinguish thousands upon thousands of high-value claims at bargain-basement rates.” Representatives for the companies named in the lawsuit have not yet commented.
The new case follows Anthropic’s settlement in August, when it agreed to pay $1.5 billion to authors who alleged copyright infringement in AI training. Carreyrou has described the use of pirated books as Anthropic’s “original sin,” criticizing the settlement for offering class members only a small fraction of potential damages under the Copyright Act. Lawyers from Freedman Normand Friedland filed the complaint, including Kyle Roche, who was previously featured in a 2023 New York Times article by Carreyrou. Observers note that the lawsuit could intensify scrutiny of AI companies’ training practices and copyright compliance, as authors increasingly challenge the use of their work without consent.
