Three authors have launched a lawsuit against Nvidia (NVDA), claiming the microchip company used their copyrighted books without permission to train its NeMo artificial intelligence (A.I.) platform.
Brian Keene, Abdi Nazemian and Stewart O'Nan claim in their legal action that their books were among nearly 200,000 published works that helped train NeMo to simulate written language before being shutdown in October 2023 due to “reported copyright infringement.”
The authors have filed a proposed class action lawsuit against Nvidia in San Francisco federal court. The authors state that the takedown of NeMo is tantamount to Nvidia admitting that it infringed copyright laws.
The authors are seeking unspecified damages from Nvidia. Among the works alleged to have been used by Nvidia without permission are Keene's 2008 novel “Ghost Walk,” Nazemian's 2019 novel “Like a Love Story,” and O'Nan's 2007 work “Last Night at the Lobster.”
The lawsuit drags Nvidia into a growing number of lawsuits filed by writers, as well as The New York Times newspaper, over generative A.I., which creates new content based on inputs such as written texts, images and sounds.
Other companies sued over their A.I. technologies and alleged copyright infringement include privately held OpenAI and its business partner Microsoft (MSFT).
Nvidia’s stock has gained nearly 300% over the past 12 months and currently trades at $875.28 U.S. per share.
