faced with the siphoning of their works, artists are increasing legal actions – Libération

2023-09-21 21:50:06

Artificial intelligence: from fascination to concerndossierLatest episode in a series of legal proceedings brought by artists against platforms using AI, the author of “Game of Thrones” George RR Martin files a complaint against OpenAI , the parent company of ChatGPT.

Between artists and artificial intelligences, the legal standoff is intensifying. A collective of writers, including the author of the successful Game of Thrones saga, is attacking OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT, this Thursday, September 21, for “non-respect of copyright.” As the conversational robot ChatGPT, the image-generating artificial intelligences Midjourney and DALL-E, and recently voice alteration programs gain popularity, their productions find themselves in the crosshairs of authors or their rights holders, whether either in the fields of literature, images or music.

If these tools can represent an aid in the creative process, their use sometimes aims to completely replace artists. However, to feed themselves, these programs must ingest a large part of their original work. This was not lost on the authors. In July, it was the writers Sarah Silverman, Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey who sued OpenAI and Meta in the United States for “non-compliance with copyright”. In their complaint they denounce AI learning based on the siphoning of illegally acquired data from “shadow libraries”, sites which provide free access to thousands of works. And also invoke a “use of works subject to copyright without consent, credit or compensation”.

Accusations difficult to substantiate

In question, the ability of programs to summarize their books a little too precisely for the taste of writers – despite a few errors – which would betray access to all of their content. But such accusations remain difficult to substantiate. Judge William Orrick, in charge of the case, said he was inclined to reject many of the artists’ group’s accusations, while encouraging them to formulate a new complaint by fleshing out their accusations more concretely: having access to the code Stability AI source should allow them to understand how the database used by the AI ​​works. This summer, authors Mona Awad and Paul Tremblay also accused OpenAI of feeding ChatGPT their works with similar arguments.

The image field is not spared, with AIs like Dall-E or Midjourney which have become known to the general public for their ease of use and the quality of the images generated. Three illustrators, Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan and Karla Ortiz, filed a collective complaint in January 2023 in the United States against Stability AI, Midjourney and Deviant Art. The same month in London, Getty Images, the largest American illustration, photo and video agency, published a press release announcing proceedings against Stability AI, claiming that the company had violated intellectual property rights by “copying and illegally processing millions of copyrighted images” represented by Getty Images.

In the video game sector, already precarious for many of its small hands, the industry does not hide its use of AI: “We use artificial intelligence to generate storytelling lines to enrich the story in the game, or even produce code,” Linus Gärtig, from the Berlin company Ivy Juice Game, admitted to AFP at the end of August. While the artistic community is mobilizing to protect its creations and copyrights, the rapid development of AI is already destabilizing many economic sectors. Onclusive, a media monitoring company based in Courbevoie (Hauts-de-Seine), has just announced one of the first massive layoff plans due to AI in France. Faced with the explosion of this technology, the law is struggling to adapt.