The New York Times took the first step. After the New York newspaper updated its terms of use to prevent artificial intelligences from appropriating its content, writers of the caliber of George R.R. Martin and John Grisham have risen up against what they have called a “systematic and massive-scale theft”: ChatGPT would be being fed through copyrighted works without any permission or authorization.
The authors claim that OpenAI would be committing “blatant and dangerous infringements” against copyright rights, so the Authors’ Brotherhood has opted to go to court, led by writers like David Baldacci, Sylvia Day, and Elin Hilderbrand, among others.
One of the most significant statements during these days has been that of Mary Rasenberg, CEO of the Authors’ Brotherhood, directly confronting machine learning and artificial intelligence models as a threat that could destroy an incredibly rich literature, which fuels other major American industries. She has also commented that great books come from authors who invest years, if not their entire lives, in methodically refining and perfecting their works, so in the name of preservation, authors should have control over the uses made of their works by artificial intelligence.
George R.R. Martin in the eye of the storm
One of the authors most affected by this misuse is the author of the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, George R.R. Martin, as ChatGPT is said to have generated an unofficial and obviously unauthorized prequel to the first book of the series, “Game of Thrones.” This sort of prequel would be called “A Dawn of Direwolves” and would use the same characters that already exist in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” saga.
Meanwhile, OpenAI is trying to defend itself against these accusations by explaining that the company respects the rights and work of the authors, and they are in discussions with multiple authors to find “mutually beneficial” ways to work together.
