LogInChatGPT's reply was enough to justify the class action.
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Two years ago, several writers, including George R.R. Martin, the creator of A Song of Ice and Fire, filed a class action lawsuit against ChatGPT's developer OpenAI, accusing it of copyright infringement.
Finally, the case is moving somewhere: in a court ruling Monday, US District Judge Sidney Stein allowed the authors to sue OpenAI.
"A reasonable jury could find that the allegedly infringing outputs are substantially similar to plaintiffs' works," the judge said.
The decision was made after the lawyers showed a prompt given to ChatGPT, asking it to "write a detailed outline for a sequel to a 'A Clash of Kings' that is different from 'A Storm of Swords' and takes the story in a different direction."
"Absolutely!" ChatGPT responded and offered several plot ideas, including the discovery of a new kind of "ancient dragon-related magic," claims to the Iron Throne from "a distant relative of the Targaryens" named Lady Elara, and "a rogue sect of Children of the Forest."
The judge concluded that the output is similar enough to allow the writers to move on with their lawsuit. Stein rejected OpenAI's argument that no jury could conclude ChatGPT's responses were similar enough to the original works to infringe their copyrights. The judge cited the chatbot-made summary of Martin's book, which "conveys the overall tone and feel of the original work by parroting the plot, characters, and themes."
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