Writers Strike Back: Microsoft Sued Over AI’s Use of Their Books

A collective of prominent writers has launched a lawsuit against Microsoft, accusing the tech giant of illicitly utilizing nearly 200,000 pirated books to train its Megatron artificial intelligence. This lawsuit marks a significant escalation in the ongoing struggle between creators and AI developers regarding intellectual property rights. The authors claim the AI model was designed to mirror the “syntax, voice, and themes” of their original works.
Filed in New York federal court, the complaint seeks not only a permanent injunction against Microsoft’s alleged copyright violations but also substantial statutory damages, potentially reaching $150,000 for each individual work purportedly misused. The core of the authors’ argument revolves around the foundational role of vast datasets in training generative AI models to produce realistic text, music, or imagery. They specifically call out the pirated dataset as integral to the AI’s mimetic capabilities.
As of now, Microsoft has not provided an official response to the lawsuit, and the authors’ legal representative has declined to comment. This case emerges amidst a flurry of similar high-stakes legal battles, including recent rulings in California concerning Anthropic and Meta, underscoring the legal complexities of AI development.
The legal battlefront concerning AI and copyright is rapidly expanding, encompassing diverse forms of media. Prominent examples include The New York Times’ lawsuit against OpenAI, Dow Jones’ case against Perplexity AI, and actions by major record labels against AI music generators. Tech companies often defend themselves by citing the fair use doctrine, asserting that their AI creates novel, transformative works and that stringent copyright enforcement could impede the growth of the burgeoning AI industry.