Microsoft Sued By Authors Over Use of Books in AI Training (reuters.com)
(Wednesday June 25, 2025 @11:30PM (msmash)
from the tussle-continues dept.)
- Reference: 0178185338
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/06/25/2137220/microsoft-sued-by-authors-over-use-of-books-in-ai-training
- Source link: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/microsoft-sued-by-authors-over-use-books-ai-training-2025-06-25/
Microsoft has been [1]hit with a lawsuit by a group of authors who claim the company used their books without permission to train its Megatron artificial intelligence model. From a report:
> Kai Bird, Jia Tolentino, Daniel Okrent and several others alleged that Microsoft used pirated digital versions of their books to teach its AI to respond to human prompts. Their lawsuit, filed in New York federal court on Tuesday, is one of several high-stakes cases brought by authors, news outlets and other copyright holders against tech companies including Meta Platforms, Anthropic and Microsoft-backed OpenAI over alleged misuse of their material in AI training.
>
> [...] The writers alleged in the complaint that Microsoft used a collection of nearly 200,000 pirated books to train Megatron, an algorithm that gives text responses to user prompts.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/microsoft-sued-by-authors-over-use-books-ai-training-2025-06-25/
> Kai Bird, Jia Tolentino, Daniel Okrent and several others alleged that Microsoft used pirated digital versions of their books to teach its AI to respond to human prompts. Their lawsuit, filed in New York federal court on Tuesday, is one of several high-stakes cases brought by authors, news outlets and other copyright holders against tech companies including Meta Platforms, Anthropic and Microsoft-backed OpenAI over alleged misuse of their material in AI training.
>
> [...] The writers alleged in the complaint that Microsoft used a collection of nearly 200,000 pirated books to train Megatron, an algorithm that gives text responses to user prompts.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/microsoft-sued-by-authors-over-use-books-ai-training-2025-06-25/
Model Name (Score:4, Informative)
Even the name of the model is stolen.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe. If Hasbro (the owner of the Megatron trademark) chooses to ignore Microsoft's use of the name, then there is nothing blocking Microsoft from using the name. It's up to trademark holders to sue to protect their marks.
Re: (Score:2)
If they don't defend it then they can lose it, and it will become fair game for everyone else, too.