Tom Polcyn and Matt Braunel Discuss GenAI Concerns for Human Authors

In a recent article for World IP Review, Thompson Coburn Partners Tom Polcyn and Matt Braunel were interviewed regarding the recent legal challenges from authors who claim large language models like ChatGPT use their copyrighted works without permission. These authors, including notable figures like George RR Martin and John Grisham, allege that ChatGPT has used their works to train the models.

Polcyn and Braunel, the article states, noted that “among the rights afforded to the owner of a copyright are the right to reproduce the work and the right to prepare derivative works based on the work. … Both Silverman et al v Meta and OpenAI, and Chabon et al v OpenAI allege improper reproduction, and both suits raise issues concerning the preparation of derivative works by AI systems.”

They explain how the latest complaint brought by members of The Authors Guild goes beyond the issue of derivative works and argues that generative AI systems are already causing a negative economic impact on human authors, with content writing opportunities diminishing.

Read more here.