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NVIDIA (NVDA) sued by authors over unauthorized use of books in its AI training

In a proposed class action lawsuit, several authors alleged that NVIDIA infringed copyrights by using books to train its NeMo AI without permission.

TJ Denzer

March 11, 2024 11:08 AM

Image by NVIDIA

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NVIDIA has found itself in some legal trouble from several authors over the unauthorized use of written works in the training of its NeMo AI platform. Now it may be forced to pay out to said authors if the judge sees their way in a class action lawsuit launched against the tech giant.

The lawsuit against NVIDIA was filed this week by several authors, as reported by Reuters. According to reports, Brian Keene, Abdi Nazemian, and Stewart O'Nan claimed in the lawsuit that their published works ended up used in a dataset of nearly 200,000 books that were used to help train NeMo in learning and being able to replicate ordinary written language. This dataset was then taken down in October 2023 in relation to copyright infringement allegations. The authors found this to be proof of admittance on NVIDIA’s part in the unauthorized use of their works. Since then, the class-action has been launched in the United States, seeking unspecified damages from NVIDIA for having used the copyrighted works to train the NeMo model.

Among the works cited as having been used by NVIDIA in the lawsuit are Brian Keene's 2008 novel Ghost Walk, Abdi Nazemian's 2019 novel Like a Love Story, and Stewart O'Nan's 2007 novel Last Night at the Lobster. AI has been a highly controversial topic in the creative and media space for how much it takes from existing work and artists without permission. The allegations against NVIDIA are likely to add fuel to that fire. AI lobbying in the United States has kept the government from cracking down hard on use of AI and regulation of it, but it hasn’t kept the Biden administration from demanding safeguards and risk minimization regarding AI technology.

It remains to be seen what will come of this lawsuit, but at the very least, authors caught in the crossfire may end up pinching some pennies out of NVIDIA if it did, indeed, engage in unauthorized use of copyrighted works. Stay tuned as we continue to follow this story for further updates.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.