Key Points
- John Carreyrou and five writers sued six major AI companies for copyright theft. Elon Musk’s xAI is named as a defendant for the first time in such a case.
- The authors claim the companies used their books to train AI without permission.
- The group is avoiding a “class action” to seek higher individual payouts.
- Carreyrou argues that current settlements offer authors only a tiny fraction of what they deserve.
John Carreyrou, the investigative reporter famous for exposing the Theranos fraud, is now taking on the titans of the AI world. He and five other writers filed a lawsuit on Monday in a California federal court. They are suing Elon Musk’s xAI, along with OpenAI, Google, Meta, Anthropic, and Perplexity. This marks the first time xAI has faced a legal challenge over the way it trains its artificial intelligence.
The core of the complaint is simple: the authors say these companies used their copyrighted books without permission. They claim the tech giants pirated their work and fed it into large language models to teach chatbots how to write and think. Carreyrou, who wrote the bestseller Bad Blood, argues that his work and the work of others shouldn’t be free fuel for multi-billion-dollar corporations.
What makes this case different is the legal strategy. Most authors join “class action” lawsuits, where a single large settlement covers thousands of people. Carreyrou and his group are refusing to do that. They argue that class actions allow tech companies to settle for “bargain-basement” rates. They believe that when thousands of claims are lumped together, individual writers lose out on the true value of their work.
The writers pointed to a recent $1.5 billion settlement involving Anthropic as a cautionary tale. They noted that the authors in that case will only receive about 2% of the maximum amount allowed under copyright law.
Carreyrou has been vocal about his frustration, previously telling a judge that stealing books was Anthropic’s “original sin.” He believes the current system lets tech companies get away with massive theft for a relatively tiny fee.
The lawyers representing the group include Kyle Roche, a man Carreyrou actually profiled in a 2023 newspaper article. While other authors wait for small payouts from class-action settlements, this group is pushing for individual accountability and greater damages.
So far, the tech companies involved have not commented on the new legal challenge. This lawsuit adds to the growing pressure on AI developers to pay for the human knowledge they use to build their products.
