So by popular demand here is my own post about
and why
This case will not affect fanwork.
The actual legal complaint that was filed in court can be found here and I implore people to actually read it, as opposed to taking some rando's word on it (yes, me, I'm some rando).
The Introductory Statement (just pages 2-3) shouldn't require being fluent in legalese and it provides a fairly straightforward summary of what the case is aiming to accomplish, why, and how.
That said, I understand that for the majority of people 90% of the complaint is basically incomprehensible, so please give me some leeway as I try to condense 4 years of school and a 47 page legal document into a tumblr post.
To abbreviate to the extreme, page 46 (paragraph 341, part d) lays out exactly what the plaintiffs are attempting to turn into law:
"An injunction [legal ruling] prohibiting Defendants [AI] from infringing Plaintiffs' [named authors] and class members' [any published authors] copyrights, including without limitation enjoining [prohibiting] Defendants from using Plaintiff's and class members' copyrighted works in "training" Defendant's large language models without express authorization."
That's it. That's all.
This case is not even attempting to alter the definition of "derivative work" and nothing in the language of the argument suggests that it would inadvertently change the legal treatment of "derivative work" going forward.
I see a lot of people throwing around the term "precedent" in a frenzy, assuming that because a case touches on a particular topic (eg “derivative work” aka fanart, fanfiction, etc) somehow it automatically and irrevocably alters the legal standing of that thing going forward.
That’s not how it works.
What's important to understand about the legal definition of "precedent" vs the common understanding of the term is that in law any case can simultaneously follow and establish precedent. Because no two cases are wholly the same due to the diversity of human experience, some elements of a case can reference established law (follow precedent), while other elements of a case can tread entirely new ground (establish precedent).
The plaintiffs in this case are attempting to establish precedent that anything AI creates going forward must be classified as "derivative work", specifically because they are already content with the existing precedent that defines and limits "derivative work".
The legal limitations of "derivative work", such as those dictating that only once it is monetized are its creators fair game to be sued, are the only reason the authors can* bring this to court and seek damages.
*this is called the "grounds" for a lawsuit. You can't sue someone just because you don't like what they're doing. You have to prove you are suffering "damages". This is why fanworks are tentatively "safe"—it's basically impossible to prove that Ebony Dark'ness Dementia is depriving the original creator of any income when she's providing her fanfic for free. On top of that, it's not worth the author’s time or money to attempt to sue Ebony when there's nothing for the author to monetarily gain from a broke nerd.
Pertaining to how AI/ChatGPT is "damaging" authors when Ebony isn't and how much of an unconscionable difference there is between the potential profits up for grabs between the two:
Page 9 (paragraphs 65-68) detail how OpenAI/ChatGPT started off as a non-profit in 2015, but then switched to for-profit in 2019 and is now valued at $29 Billion.
Pages 19-41 ("Plaintiff-Specific Allegations") detail how each named author in the lawsuit has been harmed and pages 15-19 ("GPT-N's and ChatGPT’s Harm to Authors") outline all the other ways that AI is putting thousands and thousands of other authors out of business by flooding the markets with cheap commissions and books.
The only ethically debatable portion of this case is the implications of expanding what qualifies as "derivative work".
However, this case seems pretty solidly aimed at Artificial Intelligence, with very little opportunity for the case to establish precedent that could be used against humans down the line. The language of the case is very thorough in detailing how the specific mechanics of AI means that it copies* copywritten material and how those mechanics specifically mean that anything it produces should be classified as "derivative work" (by virtue of there being no way to prove that everything it produces is not a direct product of it having illegally obtained and used** copywritten material).
*per section "General Factual Allegations" (pgs 7-8), the lawsuit argues that AI uses buzzwords ("train" "learn" "intelligence") to try to muddy how AI works, but in reality it all boils down to AI just "copying" (y'all can disagree with this if you want, I'm just telling you what the lawsuit says)
**I see a lot of people saying that it's not copyright infringement if you're not the one who literally scanned the book and uploaded it to the web—this isn't true. Once you "possess" (and downloading counts) copywritten material through illegal means, you are breaking the law. And AI must first download content in order to train its algorithm, even if it dumps the original content nano-seconds later. So, effectively, AI cannot interact with copywritten material in any capacity, by virtue of how it interacts with content, without infringing.
Now that you know your fanworks are safe, I'll provide my own hot take 🔥:
Even if—even if—this lawsuit put fanworks in jeopardy... I'd still be all for it!
Why? Because if no one can make a living organically creating anything and it leads to all book, TV, and movie markets being entirely flooded with a bunch of progressively more soulless and reductive AI garbage, what the hell are you even going to be making fanworks of?
But, no, actually because the dangers of AI weaseling its way into every crevice of society with impunity is orders of magnitude more dangerous and detrimental to literal human life than fanwork being harder to access.
Note to anyone who chooses to interact with this post in any capacity: Just be civil!