Judge Rejects OpenAI’s Bid to Toss George R.R. Martin and Authors’ AI Lawsuit – They Can Sue

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OpenAI is encountering difficulties in legal battles stemming from lawsuits filed around three years ago. The company, headed by Sam Altman, is currently being sued by a group of authors, including George R.R. Martin, the author of Game of Thrones.

I was so pleased to hear that the judge agreed to let the authors present two new points in their case! It really feels like this gives them a much better chance of succeeding, offering them more avenues to prove their side.

As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, the authors are pursuing three key arguments in court. First, they contend that training AI programs like ChatGPT with copyrighted books violates copyright law.

The second concern involves claims that ChatGPT illegally downloaded books from unofficial online sources – often called “shadow libraries” – which contain pirated material. The third claim alleges that ChatGPT’s answers are too closely based on the books it learned from, possibly copying important parts of stories like the plot or characters.

The idea that illegally downloaded books were used to train OpenAI’s AI models has changed since the lawsuits began. Initially, lawyers argued a direct connection between the downloads and the model training. However, after the cases against OpenAI and Microsoft were consolidated, the authors’ lawyers shifted their strategy and moved away from that specific claim.

Now, they’re claiming that simply downloading copyrighted books—even if those books weren’t used for training AI—is a copyright infringement.

OpenAI argued that the authors introduced a new argument too late in the legal proceedings. However, Judge Sidney Stein disagreed, stating that the authors had already raised the issue in earlier court documents. He explained that those previous filings clearly accused OpenAI of illegally downloading and copying the authors’ books to commit copyright infringement.

This decision gives the authors multiple ways to seek compensation. While U.S. copyright law allows for penalties of up to $150,000 for each instance of infringement, each individual work can only be counted once. This means the authors only need to succeed on a single claim to receive damages.

Judge Stein raised another important issue: ChatGPT’s responses could potentially violate copyright laws by borrowing from existing authors’ work. For instance, the court pointed to a summary of A Song of Ice and Fire created by ChatGPT as a specific example.

The summary covered information about the Night’s Watch and the White Walkers. The judge determined that a reader could easily see it was very similar to George R.R. Martin’s writing because it repeated key elements of the story—its plot, characters, and overall ideas.

The judge also pointed out that when prompted, the chatbot came up with potential continuations of George R.R. Martin’s stories. For example, it suggested a plotline where Robb Stark unexpectedly teams up with the followers of Renly Baratheon. The court argued that a jury could logically conclude this type of response constitutes copyright infringement.

This ruling doesn’t mean OpenAI has lost the case, but it does allow the lawsuit to move forward with these updated claims. It does, however, demonstrate that the authors’ legal team, headed by Justin Nelson, has presented a compelling argument. Nelson previously secured a $1.5 billion settlement in a similar case against Anthropic on behalf of author Andrea Bartz.

Currently, Judge Stein’s decision favors the authors. The case will move to a summary judgment, which is when the court decides what parts of the case are suitable for a jury to hear. This process will reveal the strength of both sides’ arguments.

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2025-10-30 10:45