Posts Tagged: infringement

The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement

The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for using published news articles to train its artificial intelligence chatbots without an agreement that compensates it for its intellectual property. The lawsuit, which was filed in a Federal District Court in Manhattan, marks the first time a major news organization has pursued the ChatGPT developers for copyright infringement. The NYT did not specify how much it seeks in payout from the companies but that “this action seeks to hold them responsible for the billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages.”

The NYT claims that OpenAI and Microsoft, the makers of Chat GPT and Copilot, “seek to free-ride on The Times’s massive investment in its journalism” without having any licensing agreements. In one part of the complaint, the NYT highlights that its domain (www.nytimes.com) was the most used proprietary source mined for content to train GPT-3.

It alleges more than 66 million records, ranging from breaking news articles to op-eds, published across the NYT websites and other affiliated brands were used to train the AI models. The lawsuit alleges that the defendants in the case have used “almost a century’s worth of copyrighted content,” causing significant harm to the Times’ bottom line. The NYT also says that OpenAI and Microsoft’s products can “generate output that recites Times content verbatim, closely summarizes it, and mimics its expressive style.” This mirrors other complaints from comedians and authors like Sarah Silverman and Julian Sancton who claim OpenAI has profited off their works.

"We respect the rights of content creators and owners and are committed to working with them to ensure they benefit from AI technology and new revenue models," an OpenAI spokesperson told Engadget. In an email, the representative explained that the two parties were engaged in ongoing "productive conversations" and the company described the lawsuit as unexpected. "We are surprised and disappointed with this development," the OpenAI spokesperson told Engadget. Still, OpenAI is hopeful that the two will find a "mutually beneficial way to work together."

If the lawsuit makes any headway, it could create opportunities for other publishers to pursue similar legal action and make training AI models for commercial purposes more costly. Competitors in the space, like CNN and BBC News have already tried limiting what data AI web crawlers can scrape for training and development purposes.

While it’s unclear if the NYT is open to a licensing agreement after its earlier negotiations failed, leading to the lawsuit, OpenAI has reached a few deals recently. This month, it agreed to pay publisher Axel Springer for access to its content in a deal projected to be worth millions. And articles from Politico and Business Insider will be made available to train OpenAI’s next gen AI tools as part of a three year deal. It also previously made a deal with the AP to use its archival content dating back to 1985. Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment.

Update, December 27 2023, 8:36 PM ET: This story has been to include comments from an OpenAI spokesperson on the lawsuit.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-new-york-times-is-suing-openai-and-microsoft-for-copyright-infringement-181212615.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

Sarah Silverman sues OpenAI and Meta over copyright infringement

Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI. On Friday, the comedian and author, alongside novelists Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey, filed a pair of complaints against OpenAI and Meta (via Gizmodo). The group alleges the firms trained their large language models on copyrighted materials, including works they published, without obtaining consent.

The complaints center around the datasets OpenAI and Meta allegedly used to train ChatGPT and LLaMA. In the case of OpenAI, while it's "Books1" dataset conforms approximately to the size of Project Gutenberg — a well known copyright-free book repository — lawyers for the plaintiffs argue that the “Books2” datasets is too large to have derived from anywhere other than so-called "shadow libraries" of illegally available copyrighted material, such as Library Genesis and Sci-Hub. Everyday pirates can access these materials through direct downloads, but perhaps more usefully for those generating large language models, many shadow libraries also make written material available in bulk torrent packages. One exhibit from Silverman’s lawsuit involves an exchange between the comedian’s lawyers and ChatGPT. Silverman’s legal team asked the chatbot to summarize The Bedwetter, a memoir she published in 2010. The chatbot was not only able to outline entire parts of the book, but some passages it relayed appear to have been reproduced verbatim.

Silverman, Golden and Kadrey aren’t the first authors to sue OpenAI over copyright infringement. In fact, the firm faces a host of legal challenges over how it went about training ChatGPT. In June alone, the company was served with two separate complaints. One is a sweeping class action suit that alleges OpenAI violated federal and state privacy laws by scraping data to train the large language models behind ChatGPT and DALL-E.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sarah-silverman-sues-openai-and-meta-over-copyright-infringement-175322447.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

Meta ordered to pay $175 million in patent infringement case

Meta is facing a hefty bill after losing a patent infringement lawsuit. A federal judge in Texas has ordered the company to pay Voxer, the developer of app called Walkie Talkie, nearly $ 175 million as an ongoing royalty. Voxer accused Meta of infringing its patents and incorporating that tech in Instagram Live and Facebook Live.

In 2006, Tom Katis, the founder of Voxer, started working on a way to resolve communications problems he faced while serving in the US Army in Afghanistan, as TechCrunch notes. Katis and his team developed tech that allows for live voice and video transmissions, which led to Voxer debuting the Walkie Talkie app in 2011.

According to the lawsuit, soon after Voxer released the app, Meta (then known as Facebook) approached the company about a collaboration. Voxer is said to have revealed its proprietary technology as well as its patent portfolio to Meta, but the two sides didn't reach an agreement. Voxer claims that even though Meta didn't have live video or voice services back then, it identified the Walkie Talkie developer as a competitor and shut down access to Facebook features such as the "Find Friends" tool.

Meta debuted Facebook Live in 2015. Katis claims to have had a chance meeting with a Facebook Live product manager in early 2016 to discuss the alleged infringements of Voxer's patents in that product, but Meta declined to reach a deal with the company. The latter released Instagram Live later that year. "Both products incorporate Voxer’s technologies and infringe its patents," Voxer claimed in the lawsuit.

Meta denied Voxer's claims in a statement to TechCrunch. It plans to fight the ruling. “We believe the evidence at trial demonstrated that Meta did not infringe Voxer’s patents,” a spokesperson said. “We intend to seek further relief, including filing an appeal.”

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

BlackBerry targets Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp for patent infringement

BlackBerry Ltd. filed a lawsuit in US Federal Court on Tuesday that accused tech giants Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp of stealing intellectual property from BlackBerry Messenger. The 117-page lawsuit claims that the three companies created applications that infringe on BlackBerry Messenger patents and a jury trial has been requested. Financial compensation is being sought, but […]

Come comment on this article: BlackBerry targets Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp for patent infringement

Visit TalkAndroid


TalkAndroid

Android app pirates plead guilty to copyright infringement

One of the biggest Android app pirates has pled guilty to one count of criminal copyright infringement and one count of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement. Mississippi's Aaron Blake Buckley has admitted his role in distributing over four mil…
Engadget RSS Feed

Apple’s 3D Touch and Force Touch form basis of a patent infringement action

Apple’s 3D Touch and Force Touch haptic feedback technologies landed the company in hot water, as California company Immersion is suing Apple for patent infringement. Immersion also seeks a sales injunction covering Apple’s devices.

The post Apple's 3D Touch and Force Touch form basis of a patent infringement action appeared first on Digital Trends.

Mobile–Digital Trends