Nvidia Faces Lawsuit Over AI Copyright Infringement By Authors

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New Delhi: Nvidia, a leading provider of chips for artificial intelligence, finds itself embroiled in legal action as three authors Brian Keene, Abdi Nazemian, and Stewart O'Nan have filed a lawsuit against the company. The authors alleged that Nvidia used their copyrighted books without permission in the development of its NeMo platform, sparking a contentious legal battle over intellectual property rights.

The authors argue that their books were part of a dataset of 196,640 books used to train Nvidia's NeMo AI platform. They claim that the platform aimed to replicate everyday written language but was shut down in October following allegations of copyright infringement. The legal document suggests that Nvidia's action to remove the NeMo dataset implies acknowledgment of copyright violation. ()

The authors are seeking unspecified compensation on behalf of people in the United States whose copyrighted works were used to train NeMo's large language models during the past three years, in the proposed class action. ()

The lawsuit covers various types of literary works, such as Keene's novel "Ghost Walk" from 2008, Nazemian's novel "Like a Love Story" from 2019, and O'Nan's novella "Last Night at the Lobster" from 2007.

Nvidia chose not to provide a comment on Sunday, and lawyers representing the authors did not respond immediately to requests for further comment on Sunday. This lawsuit pulls Nvidia into a larger pool of legal disputes initiated by writers, as well as The New York Times, concerning generative AI. Generative AI generates new content using inputs like text, images, and sounds.

Other tech giants, including OpenAI, the developer of the AI platform ChatGPT, and its collaborator Microsoft, are also facing legal issues linked to generative AI.

In spite of facing legal hurdles, Nvidia continues to attract investors' favor, benefiting from the ongoing growth of AI technology. Since the close of 2022, the company's stock price has surged by nearly 600%, propelling Nvidia's market capitalization to nearly $2.2 trillion.

The lawsuit is identified as Nazemian et al v Nvidia Corp in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, under case number 24-01454.