- David Baldacci says suing OpenAI over AI training in its books is ‘the hill I’m going to die on’
- He argues that using copyrighted novels to train AI without permission threatens the future of creative work.
- Lawsuit Could Reshape How AI Companies Collect Data and How Creators Are Compensated
Bestselling author David Baldacci’s thrillers have spent years at the top of literary charts, but he is defining his life in a real fight over how AI models are trained with copyrighted material. He made his position clear in a 60 minutes Australia interview about his legal war against OpenAI and other AI companies for copyright infringement.
“In your professional life, in your personal life, in your life raising your children, you have to choose your battles,” Baldacci said. “You have to choose the line you will not cross. You have to choose the hill you are going to die on. This is the hill I am going to die on.”
Baldacci believes that it is about defending the soul of creative work in the digital age.
The problem was realized, he said, when the Baldacci fight began, he explained, when his son showed him how easily an AI chatbot could generate a plot in his style. He felt viscerally shocked.
“It really was like someone drove a truck into my vault and stole everything I had created and then took off with it in the middle of the night,” he said. “I felt violated because this had been my life’s work and suddenly it was there for anyone to take and use.
Look
The lawsuit that Baldacci and a coalition of prominent authors, represented by the Authors Guild, filed against OpenAI and other AI companies alleges that these companies copied copyrighted novels and other works without permission to train large language models like ChatGPT.
The plaintiffs claim that models trained on these copyrighted texts now generate results that can imitate the works of living authors in ways that undermine the value of their original creations.
Baldacci’s anger over the situation is rooted in the belief that if AI companies can use copyrighted materials without license or compensation, the very concept of copyright protection for creators is at risk.
“I think what’s really been stolen from me is who I am. People ask me why you write and I tell them I write because I can’t stop writing. It’s what I identify with,” Baldacci said. “It’s not a job, it’s not a passion, it’s not a hobby, it’s really the reason I get up every day. So what’s been stolen from me is my life’s purpose as a creative person.”
Baldacci and other authors argue that artificial intelligence systems trained on copyrighted content without permission could depress book sales, flood the market with derivative works, and decrease incentives for writers and other creators to produce original content.
If a chatbot can imitate the style and structure of a novel with little effort on the part of the user, there are concerns that the public will choose cheaper or “free” AI-generated alternatives instead of books that took years to make. That scenario, critics warn, could erode the financial viability of writing as a profession at a time when many authors already struggle on modest incomes.
Opponents of the authors’ position, including some members of the technology community and the artificial intelligence industry, argue that training on wide swaths of text found online qualifies as fair use under current copyright law. Some AI advocates have suggested that restricting access to copyrighted material would hamper innovation and slow progress in a field they see as strategically important to national competitiveness.
Battle for literary souls
Musicians, journalists, visual artists and others have filed similar lawsuits or spoken out about how AI’s use of copyrighted material affects their livelihoods. The fight over AI and copyright has become a surrogate battleground for broader questions about how society values creativity in the age of automation.
Baldacci’s fight has also taken him beyond the courtroom and into the halls of Congress. He has testified before lawmakers and advocated for legislative action to clarify copyright protections in the age of AI. At a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing, he called on lawmakers to update laws to give creators better tools to protect their work and ensure transparency in AI training data sets.
Baldacci and his supporters suggested that AI companies should be required to disclose when they use copyrighted works in training and negotiate licenses where appropriate. They argue that such changes could provide a fairer balance between innovation and creators’ rights.
“People were telling me that they were so proud of me for going there and speaking my heart out about these issues and speaking out and confronting what’s going on and standing up for creative people around the world,” Baldacci said. “It was a magical little moment where I felt really good about doing something.”
The lawsuit and the public debate around it are drawing attention to the invisible work that goes into producing AI products. If the legal landscape changes in favor of Baldacci and other authors, it could reshape the way AI systems are trained, potentially leading to new rules for licensing data and compensating creators.
That could mean changes to the way AI chatbots answer questions about fiction or how they generate content that resembles existing works. Users can see further disclaimers about the sources or limitations of derived products.
The outcome of the Baldacci battle may help define the rules of interaction between human creativity and AI. If Baldacci is ultimately successful, he is convinced that his stance regarding the protection of creators and their rights will not change.
“Stories motivate me. I mean, besides being a father and a husband, those three roles: father, husband and writer, that’s me,” Baldacci said. “If you take one leg off that stool, the stool falls over.”
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