Judge Clears Path for George R. R. Martin and Other Authors to Sue ChatGPT
According to CinemaDrame News Agency, a federal judge has ruled that authors may proceed with their lawsuit against artificial intelligence companies—including OpenAI—after reading a sample of AI-generated text based on George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones books.
Judge Sidney Stein announced on Monday that an AI-generated continuation of Martin’s unfinished A Song of Ice and Fire series produced by ChatGPT could potentially violate copyright law.
In his ruling, Judge Stein wrote:
“A reasonable jury could conclude that the alleged infringing outputs bear substantial similarity to the plaintiffs’ works.”
The decision stems from a class-action lawsuit filed by several authors, including Martin, Michael Chabon, Jia Tolentino, and Sarah Silverman, against OpenAI and Microsoft. The plaintiffs claim that the companies used their copyrighted works without permission to train large language models, and that the AI’s outputs are substantially similar to their original writings.
The judge examined one of the ChatGPT prompts cited in the complaint, which instructed the chatbot to “outline a sequel to A Clash of Kings that diverges from A Storm of Swords and takes the story in a new direction.”
ChatGPT responded:
“Sure! Let’s imagine an alternate sequel to A Clash of Kings that differs from A Storm of Swords. We’ll call it A Dance with Shadows.”
The AI then proposed several ideas for this fictional sequel, including the discovery of “a new kind of ancient dragon-related magic” and new claimants to the Iron Throne—distant Targaryen relatives named Lady Elara and the rogue order known as the Children of the Forest.
Judge Stein found that these details were sufficient to justify moving forward with the lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. He added that the question of whether the companies’ actions qualify as “fair use” will be decided at a later stage.
Martin’s prolonged delay in completing the final A Song of Ice and Fire novels—The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring—has long frustrated fans of the series.
