Unsealed Briefs in Authors’ Case v. Microsoft/OpenAI
- ID
- 29077
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 27 Sep 2026, 2:19 PM
- Fetched
- 28 Sep 2026, 1:59 AM
- Provider
- Hacker News
- Category
- dev-community
- Original URL
- https://authorsguild.org/news/ag-v-openai-top-execs-knew-mass-book-piracy-was-illegal/
- Source URL
- https://hnrss.org/best
Summary
- Score
- 7.5
- Created
- 28 Sep 2026, 1:59 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersai_ml_learnerssaas_foundersai_agent_users
What happened
Unsealed briefs in Authors Guild v. OpenAI allege that OpenAI and Microsoft executives knew their mass use of copyrighted books was illegal and proceeded anyway, including using books from a "sketchy Russian website"; the plaintiffs' filing quotes OpenAI Policy Director Jack Clark in May 2020 saying GPT-X would substitute for people's labor and warns GPT models pose an existential threat to writers and publishers. The named plaintiffs include George R.R. Martin, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult, David Baldacci, Jonathan Franzen, and others, and the Authors Guild says the filings show intentional decisions to steal books rather than pay for them. The HN thread drew 567 points and 525 comments.
Why it matters
If you ship text-generation features or build on OpenAI/Microsoft models, this is a concrete vendor-risk item: the filings allege pirated training data and executive knowledge, so founders should check whether their contracts and indemnities cover copyright claims and whether their product competes with authors or publishers. There is no Malaysia-specific detail in the text; local builders using these APIs face the same contractual uncertainty as anyone else.
Discussion angle
Should model providers be expected to disclose training-data provenance and indemnify customers for copyright claims, or is that impossible at current scale—and what would you require before building a writing or publishing tool on these APIs?