11-3-2024 (SAN FRANCISCO) Nvidia, the leading AI chip manufacturer, is facing a lawsuit filed by three authors who claim that the company used their copyrighted books without permission to train its NeMo AI platform.
Brian Keene, Abdi Nazemian, and Stewart O’Nan alleged that their literary works were included in a dataset comprising approximately 196,640 books that were utilized to train NeMo in simulating ordinary written language. However, this dataset was subsequently taken down in October due to reported copyright infringement.
The authors, in a proposed class action, lodged their complaint on Friday night at the federal court in San Francisco. They argue that Nvidia’s decision to remove the dataset is an admission of its use in training NeMo, thereby infringing upon their copyrights.
The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified damages on behalf of individuals in the United States whose copyrighted works contributed to the training of NeMo’s large language models over the past three years.
The lawsuit encompasses several notable works, including Keene’s 2008 novel Ghost Walk, Nazemian’s 2019 novel Like a Love Story, and O’Nan’s 2007 novella Last Night at the Lobster.
Nvidia has refrained from commenting on the matter, and lawyers representing the authors have yet to respond to requests for further comments.
This legal action adds Nvidia to the list of companies facing litigation from authors, as well as the New York Times, regarding generative AI, which generates new content based on various inputs such as text, images, and sounds.
Nvidia promotes NeMo as a rapid and cost-effective solution for integrating generative AI into various applications.
Other companies, including OpenAI, the creator of the AI platform ChatGPT, and its partner Microsoft, have also been sued over similar technology.
The ascent of AI has made Nvidia a favorite among investors, with the Santa Clara-based chipmaker’s stock price surging nearly 600 percent since the end of 2022, resulting in a market value of nearly US$2.2 trillion (S$2.9 trillion).
The case, identified as Nazemian et al v Nvidia Corp, will be heard at the US District Court in the Northern District of California, with reference number 24-01454.
