Authors Guild and fellow plaintiffs say OpenAI's training copies are not fair use
Authors GuildNamed plaintiff, filing with the other class plaintiffs through interim lead class counsel
The Authors Guild and the other class plaintiffs argue that OpenAI's copying of their books to train its models was not fair use.
“Defendants' Copying of Plaintiffs' Works to Train LLMs Was Not Fair Use.”
Original text
Where this statement fits
OpenAI says pretraining on authors' books is fair use; authors and publishers urge the court to reject it
OpenAI's September 4, 2026 summary-judgment motion argues that pretraining its models on authors' books was a transformative fair use that caused no legally cognizable market harm. The same day, the Authors Guild and the other class plaintiffs moved for partial summary judgment, asking the court to rule that OpenAI's training copies, its downloads of books from pirate sites and the transfers of books between OpenAI and Microsoft were not fair use. The authors argue that OpenAI copied their books to build models that generate competing works and deprived them of revenue from an existing market for training licenses. OpenAI argues that training extracts unprotectable statistical patterns for new uses and that the plaintiffs' dilution and licensing theories of harm are not legally cognizable. On October 29, the Association of American Publishers and three other publishing and licensing groups asked the court for leave to file a brief supporting the plaintiffs.
Source and context
Original text
About this source
The authors' memorandum, dated September 4, 2026, argues that OpenAI's downloads, training copies and transfers of books were not fair use and that Microsoft is vicariously liable. This public version, filed September 17, has fewer redactions than the first public copy. The filing is a party's argument.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
The class plaintiffs, a group of book authors and the Authors Guild, ask the court for partial summary judgment against OpenAI and Microsoft. After arguing that OpenAI's downloads of books from pirate sites were not fair use, their memorandum turns to the copies made to train OpenAI's models in this argument heading.
After the quotation
The memorandum argues that the training copies served a substitutive commercial purpose, were not necessary to any transformative purpose and harm both book sales and the market for AI training licenses.
How this statement is classified
The label describes this statement's response within the context above.
Why this label?
Relative to OpenAI's unlicensed pretraining on authors' books, the plaintiffs ask the court to rule that the training copies are not fair use.
- Recorded on
- Published here
More from this case
Read the full caseAssociation of American Publishers argues that OpenAI's training copies are not transformative
Association of American Publishers
“OpenAI's Copying for AI Training Is Not a Transformative Use.”Read statement
OpenAI defends model pretraining as fair use
OpenAI
“That alleged use was fair because it was highly transformative, did not display any meaningful portion of the books to ChatGPT users, and caused no cognizable harm.”Read statement
Share or embed this statement
The embed keeps its attribution link to The Dispute Index. Credit the image to The Dispute Index and link to the statement page.
Cite this record
- Publisher
- The Dispute Index
- Title
- Authors Guild and fellow plaintiffs say OpenAI's training copies are not fair use
- First published
- Last updated
- Permalink
- https://disputeindex.com/events/7313-the-authors-guild-and-the-other-class-plaintiffs
Last updated marks the most recent saved version of this published statement.
The Dispute Index. "Authors Guild and fellow plaintiffs say OpenAI's training copies are not fair use". First published: 2026-10-30. Last updated: 2026-10-30. https://disputeindex.com/events/7313-the-authors-guild-and-the-other-class-plaintiffs