A San Francisco class action attorney, who was representing comedian Sarah Silverman, Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Michael Chabon, and other authors in a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI Inc., recently had his motion to serve as the plaintiffs’ interim lead counsel denied. The lawsuit accused OpenAI of training its AI model behind ChatGPT, its principal chatbot, by unlawfully copying hundreds of thousands of books without securing permission from the authors.
Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of the US District Court for the Northern District of California asserted that the attempt made by the Joseph Saveri Law Firm LLP to serve as interim lead counsel representing the authors was premature. According to her, lead counsel appointments should only be considered after class certification.
As this story unfolds, its implications for copyright law and AI training practices will be of interest to legal and corporate professionals alike. Further information on this case are available on Bloomberg Law.