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                    "All News\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPress Releases\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAdded to last week\u2019s revelations, new filings reveal OpenAI's lawless determination to do virtually anything to win the AI arms race, including using books from a \u201csketchy Russian website\u201d and releasing products \u201cthat will make people unemployed\u201d\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n(New York, September 21, 2026) Explosive new documents released last Thursday in Authors Guild v. OpenAI\u2014the major book authors\u2019 ongoing lawsuit alleging OpenAI and Microsoft illegally trained their products on copyrighted books\u2014show that executives and employees at both companies intentionally broke the law and their disdain for human authorship. The brief meticulously documents AI developers\u2019 knowledge of the damage their actions could do to authors, publishers, and American culture itself, warning that \u201cOpenAI\u2019s GPT models pose an existential threat to those who write and publish books.\u201d\n\n\n\nPlaintiffs in the lawsuit include The Authors Guild, writers David Baldacci, Taylor Branch, Michael Connelly, Sylvia Day, Jonathan Franzen, Christopher Golden, Andrew Sean Greer, John Grisham, David Henry Hwang, Matthew Klam, George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult, Stacy Schiff, James Shapiro, and others. Their filings (here and here) mark a turning point in the case, putting the defendant companies\u2019 guilty knowledge and reckless actions at the center of the narrative.\n\n\n\nAuthors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger observed, \u201cThese filings reveal shocking disdain for writers and their work through repeated, intentional decisions to steal books rather than pay for them with full knowledge that their products will destroy the careers of authors. OpenAI pursued its mass piracy scheme even in the face of clear evidence that doing so would degrade American culture by substituting human works with AI slop and would put thousands of writers out of work. We are grateful to our entire legal team for uncovering and telling this critical story.\u201d\n\n\n\nAlongside equally scorching but separate revelations in a brief filed by news media organizations, the authors\u2019 brief reveals:\n\n\n\n\nOpenAI and Microsoft Knew Their Systems Would Replace Human Writers \u2013 OpenAI Policy Director Jack Clark stated in May 2020: \u201cOur work on AI and Creativity is going to increasingly lead to us creating systems that substitute for the labor of [] people . . . The better we do on GPT-X, the more worried genre fiction authors will become about us substituting for them on Amazon.\u201d He then doubled down: \u201cOur work in this area will make people unemployed. . . There will be a point where a bunch of artists express worry about what we\u2019re doing here and we\u2019ll likely ignore their concerns and release anyway . . .\u201d\n\n\n\n\u201cAutocompleting\u201d Other People\u2019s Work \u2013 OpenAI hired Tarun Gogineni in 2022 to lead its efforts to improve the writing quality of its models. Gogineni stated his \u201cresearch mission\u201d was to have GPT models write the \u201clast two books of [Martin\u2019s] A Song of Ice and Fire\u201d series by \u201cfinishing it one day.\u201d Gogineni even mused that he would \u201crest easy knowing that even if GRRM [George R. R. Martin] dies early, GPT-5 will autocomplete his series.\u201d\n\n\n\n\u201cAcceptable Economic Disruption.\u201d \u2013 \u201cAlthough [Gogineni] was aware of authors\u2019 complaints that the \u2018datasets are stolen\u2019 and that authors were losing work to AI-generated competition, he did not find those complaints \u2018all that sympathetic\u2019 and instead viewed them as \u2018acceptable economic disruption.\u2019 He wrote that the world would soon experience \u2018the death of the reader\u2019 as \u2018machines creat[ed] slop for more machines.\u2019\u201d\n\n\n\nMicrosoft Knew OpenAI Used Pirated Books from the Start \u2013 \u201cMicrosoft knew about OpenAI\u2019s use of LibGen as early as April 2019 when Sam Altman and Dario Amodei presented an early version of GPT-3 to Bill Gates and disclosed the use of LibGen to Gates and Microsoft\u2019s Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott, among others.\u201d\n\n\n\nOpenAI Feared \u201cOptics,\u201d Not the Law \u2013 \u201cDario Amodei, OpenAI\u2019s then-Research Director, responded that \u2018as a training set [LibGen is] a bit sketchier.\u2019 [OpenAI researcher Sam] McCandlish explained: \u2018I was just worried about optics \u2013 i.e. \u2018openai uses copyrighted data from sketchy russian website\u2019 showing up on [Hacker News] would be unfortunate.\u201d\n\n\n\nThey Tried to Hide the Evidence \u2013 In an effort to cover its tracks the company called \u201cProject Clear,\u201d OpenAI deleted its LibGen files in the summer of 2022. \u201cOn June 15, 2022, in an OpenAI Slack channel, [OpenAI Corporate Designee] Paino asked: \u2018general q: how concerned are we about mentions of libgen? (they\u2019re all over google docs/slack/github . . .). That evening, [OpenAI VP of Research Bob] McGrew wrote to Paino and Nicholas Ryder: \u201cGiven how much OpenAI is in the news, now is the right time to excise Libgen from our systems and storage. What would be involved in that?\u2019\u201d\n\n\n\n\nAll quotes taken from Class Plaintiffs\u2019 Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (Docket 1982) and Class Plaintiffs\u2019 Corrected Rule 56.1 Statement of Undisputed Material Facts (Docket 1987).\n\n\n\nThis briefing was filed in the class action case brought on behalf of the Authors Guild and book copyright owners, Alter v. OpenAI and Microsoft, with lead counsel Justin A. Nelson from Susman Godfrey. The case is part of multidistrict litigation against those defendants pending in Manhattan. We expect more briefing over the next couple months and a hearing in early 2027.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWith more than 18,000 members, the Authors Guild is the nation\u2019s oldest and largest professional organization for published writers. It advocates on behalf of working writers to protect free speech, freedom of expression, and authors\u2019 copyrights; fights for fair contracts and authors ability to earn a livable wage; and provides a welcoming community for writers and translators of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and journalism. Through its educational and charitable arm, the Authors Guild Foundation, it also offers free programming to teach working writers about the business of writing, as well as organizing public events that highlight the importance of a rich, diverse American literary culture and the authors who contribute to it.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\n\n      Become a Member\n      Join the Guild and support our work to protect authors\u2019 rights.\n    \n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\tBy continuing to browse or by clicking \"Accept All Cookies,\" you agree to first- and third-party cookies being stored on your device to enhance functionality of our site and to help us analyze our site traffic."
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