Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), renowned for its AI-enabling chips, finds itself embroiled in a legal battle with three authors who claim the company used their copyrighted books without authorization to train its NeMo AI platform.
Authors Brian Keene, Abdi Nazemian, and Stewart O’Nan allege that their literary works were included in a dataset of approximately 196,640 books utilized to train NeMo in simulating everyday written language. However, this dataset was removed in October following reports of copyright infringement.
In a proposed class action filed in San Francisco federal court on Friday, the authors assert that Nvidia’s removal of the dataset serves as an admission of its usage in training NeMo, thus constituting copyright infringement.
The plaintiffs seek 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 litigated copyrighted works encompass 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 declined to provide comment on the matter, while lawyers representing the authors were not immediately available for additional remarks.
This lawsuit adds Nvidia to a growing list of defendants in litigation brought by writers and entities like the New York Times concerning generative AI, which generates new content based on various inputs such as text, images, and sounds.
NeMo, promoted by Nvidia as a rapid and cost-effective solution for adopting generative AI, faces scrutiny amid this legal backdrop.
Other companies embroiled in similar legal disputes over generative AI include OpenAI, the creator of the AI platform ChatGPT, and its collaborator Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT).
Nvidia’s prominence in the AI sector has made it a favored choice for investors. The chipmaker’s stock price has surged nearly 600% since the close of 2022, propelling Nvidia’s market value to nearly $2.2 trillion.
The lawsuit is titled Nazemian et al v Nvidia Corp and is filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 24-01454.
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Author Faith Yakubu 
