The Authors Guild becomes a party
On 19 September 2023 the Authors Guild and seventeen writers filed a class action against eleven OpenAI entities in the Southern District of New York, case 1:23-cv-08292. Among the plaintiffs are David Baldacci, Michael Connelly, Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham, George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult, George Saunders and Scott Turow.
Why it matters
Until then the plaintiffs had been individual authors with a few books each. Here a professional body became a party, which turned the dispute from a set of private cases into a trade demand for the licensing of training data. That changed not the law but the weight: the answer now had to be made to a guild rather than to three people.
The seventeen named plaintiffs are David Baldacci, Mary Bly, Michael Connelly, Sylvia Day, Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham, Elin Hilderbrand, Christina Baker Kline, Maya Shanbhag Lang, Victor LaValle, George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult, Douglas Preston, Roxana Robinson, George Saunders, Scott Turow and Rachel Vail. Eleven entities of the OpenAI group are named as defendants, including the Startup Fund partnerships. What the record does not claim. The record sets out neither the counts of the complaint nor how the case ended.