Authors take legal action against Nvidia for copyright infringement in AI Training

Authors Brian Keene, Abdi Nazemian, and Stewart O’Nan sue Nvidia for alleged copyright infringement in training its NeMo AI platform. The authors claim Nvidia used their books without permission in a dataset, later taken down for copyright issues.

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Nvidia is currently embroiled in a legal dispute as three authors, Brian Keene, Abdi Nazemian, and Stewart O’Nan, filed a lawsuit against the company. The authors allege that Nvidia used their copyrighted books without authorisation for the training of its NeMo AI platform.

According to the authors, Nvidia employed their works as part of a dataset, consisting of approximately 196,640 volumes, to train NeMo in the simulation of written language. Despite the dataset being removed in October 2023 following copyright infringement reports, the authors argue that Nvidia’s acknowledgement of training NeMo on the dataset constitutes a breach of copyright.

In response, the authors are seeking unspecified damages on behalf of US writers whose copyrighted materials were utilised in the past three years to train NeMo’s extensive language models. This request is part of a proposed class action filed in federal court in San Francisco, citing works such as ‘Ghost Walk’ by Keene, ‘Like a Love Story’ by Nazemian, and ‘Last Night at the Lobster’ by O’Nan.

Why does this matter?

This legal action places Nvidia among the companies facing legal scrutiny regarding generative AI technology, which generates new content based on diverse inputs. NeMo, known for its rapid and cost-effective adoption of generative AI, has drawn attention from both creators and litigators. The tech industry has witnessed a surge in legal disputes related to AI, with notable cases involving companies like OpenAI and Microsoft.