When The Atlantic published a searchable dataset of works used to train AI, author Kirk Wallace Johnson discovered his books "The Feather Thief" and "The Fishermen and the Dragon" had been used without permission. He describes feeling "anger over the brazenness of the theft, worry over what this means for writers, and a healthy thirst for revenge." Johnson proactively reached out to Susman Godfrey, the law firm already leading a case against Anthropic on behalf of authors.
Dozens of authors, musicians, illustrators, and artists are filing lawsuits against AI companies, primarily on copyright grounds, though some have pursued terms of service violations. Some cases have settled quickly while others have dragged on for years, with mixed results especially around the definition of fair use.
Illustrator Sarah Andersen, along with Karla Ortiz, Kelly McKernan, and other visual artists, filed a class action suit against Stability, Midjourney, DeviantArt, and Runway AI in January 2023, just months after Stable Diffusion and Midjourney were released and shortly after ChatGPT's debut. Johnson called the situation: "This does not seem to be a bus driven by a bunch of sane sober thinking people, and we're all stuck in it."