加上上周的爆料，新的法庭文件揭示了 OpenAI 为了赢得 AI 军备竞赛，几乎不惜一切代价、无视法律的决心，包括使用来自“可疑俄罗斯网站”的书籍，以及发布“会让人们失业”的产品
2026 年 9 月 21 日
（纽约，2026 年 9 月 21 日）上周四在 Authors Guild 诉 OpenAI 一案中公布的爆炸性新文件——这是主要图书作者正在进行的诉讼，指控 OpenAI 和 Microsoft 非法使用受版权保护的书籍训练其产品——显示这两家公司的高管和员工故意违法，并对人类创作充满蔑视。该文件细致地记录了 AI 开发者明知其行为可能对作者、出版商乃至美国文化本身造成损害，并警告称 “OpenAI 的 GPT 模型对那些写作和出版书籍的人构成生存威胁。”
该诉讼的原告包括 Authors Guild，以及作家 David Baldacci、Taylor Branch、Michael Connelly、Sylvia Day、Jonathan Franzen、Christopher Golden、Andrew Sean Greer、John Grisham、David Henry Hwang、Matthew Klam、George R.R. Martin、Jodi Picoult、Stacy Schiff、James Shapiro 等人。他们提交的文件（此处和此处）标志着案件的一个转折点，将被告公司的明知故犯和鲁莽行为置于叙事中心。
作家协会首席执行官 Mary Rasenberger 评论道：“这些文件揭示了对作家及其作品令人震惊的蔑视，其表现为反复、蓄意地决定窃取书籍而非付费购买，且完全明知其产品将摧毁作者们的职业生涯。OpenAI 推行其大规模盗版计划，即便面对明确证据表明这样做会以 AI 垃圾替代人类作品、从而侵蚀美国文化，并让数千名写作者失业。我们感谢整个法律团队揭露并讲述了这一关键事实。”
与新闻媒体机构提交的一份简报中同样激烈但相互独立的披露内容相呼应，作家的简报揭示了：
- OpenAI 和 Microsoft 知道他们的系统将取代人类写作者——OpenAI 政策总监 Jack Clark 在 2020 年 5 月表示：“我们在 AI 与创造力方面的工作将越来越导致我们创造出替代[]人们劳动的 systems 。 . . 我们在 GPT-X 上做得越好，类型小说作者就会越担心我们在 Amazon 上取代他们。”他随后进一步强调：“我们在这一领域的工作将让人们失业。 . . 会有那么一个时刻，一群艺术家对我们在这里所做的事情表达担忧，而我们很可能会无视他们的关切，照样发布。 . .”
- “自动补全”他人的作品——OpenAI 于 2022 年聘请 Tarun Gogineni，负责领导提升其模型写作质量的工作。Gogineni 表示，他的“研究使命”是让 GPT 模型写出“[马丁的]《冰与火之歌》系列的最后两本书”，方式是“有朝一日把它写完”。Gogineni 甚至畅想，他会“安心地知道，即使 GRRM[乔治·R·R·马丁]早早去世，GPT-5 也会自动补全他的系列。”
- “可接受的经济冲击。”——“尽管[Gogineni]知道作者们抱怨‘数据集是偷来的’，以及作者们正因 AI 生成的竞争而失去工作，但他并不觉得这些抱怨‘有多值得同情’，反而将其视为‘可接受的经济冲击’。他写道，世界很快就会经历‘读者的死亡’，因为‘机器为更多机器制造垃圾内容。’”
- 微软从一开始就知道 OpenAI 使用了盗版书籍——“微软早在 2019 年 4 月就知道 OpenAI 使用 LibGen，当时 Sam Altman 和 Dario Amodei 向 Bill Gates 展示了 GPT-3 的早期版本，并向 Gates 和微软首席技术官 Kevin Scott 等人披露了使用 LibGen 的情况。”
- OpenAI 担心的是“舆论观感”，而非法律– “时任 OpenAI 研究总监 Dario Amodei 回应称，‘作为训练集，[LibGen] 有点不太靠谱。’[OpenAI 研究员 Sam] McCandlish 解释说：‘我只是担心舆论观感——也就是说，’openai 使用来自可疑俄罗斯网站的受版权保护数据‘出现在 [Hacker News] 上会很不妙。’”
- 他们试图隐藏证据 – 为了掩盖痕迹，这家公司发起了一项名为“Project Clear”的行动，OpenAI 在 2022 年夏天删除了其 LibGen 文件。“2022 年 6 月 15 日，在 OpenAI 的一个 Slack 频道中，[OpenAI 公司指定代表] Paino 问道：‘一个普遍的问题：我们对提到 libgen 有多担心？（它们遍布 google docs/slack/github……）。’当天晚上，[OpenAI 研究副总裁 Bob] McGrew 写信给 Paino 和 Nicholas Ryder：‘鉴于 OpenAI 现在新闻曝光度这么高，现在正是从我们的系统和存储中清除 Libgen 的合适时机。这需要涉及哪些工作？’”
所有引文均摘自集体原告支持部分简易判决动议的法律备忘录（案卷 1982）以及集体原告更正后的第 56.1 条无争议重大事实陈述（案卷 1987）。
这份简报是在代表美国作家协会和图书版权所有者提起的集体诉讼案件 Alter 诉 OpenAI 和 Microsoft 中提交的，首席律师为来自 Susman Godfrey 的 Justin A. Nelson。该案是针对这些被告、在曼哈顿待决的多地区诉讼的一部分。我们预计未来几个月还会有更多简报，并在 2027 年初举行听证会。
关于作者协会与作者协会基金会
作者协会拥有超过 18,000 名会员，是全国历史最悠久、规模最大的已出版作家专业组织。它为在职作家发声，保护言论自由、表达自由和作者的版权；争取公平合同以及作者获得足以维持生计的报酬的能力；并为小说、非虚构、诗歌和新闻领域的作家与译者提供一个友好的社群。通过其教育与慈善机构——作者协会基金会，它还提供免费课程，教在职作家了解写作这门生意，并组织公共活动，彰显丰富多元的美国文学文化及其贡献者——作家们——的重要性。
成为会员
加入协会，支持我们保护作者权利的工作。
立即加入
Added to last week’s revelations, new filings reveal OpenAI's lawless determination to do virtually anything to win the AI arms race, including using books from a “sketchy Russian website” and releasing products “that will make people unemployed”
September 21, 2026
(New York, September 21, 2026) Explosive new documents released last Thursday in Authors Guild v. OpenAI—the major book authors’ ongoing lawsuit alleging OpenAI and Microsoft illegally trained their products on copyrighted books—show that executives and employees at both companies intentionally broke the law and their disdain for human authorship. The brief meticulously documents AI developers’ knowledge of the damage their actions could do to authors, publishers, and American culture itself, warning that “OpenAI’s GPT models pose an existential threat to those who write and publish books.”
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include The Authors Guild, writers David Baldacci, Taylor Branch, Michael Connelly, Sylvia Day, Jonathan Franzen, Christopher Golden, Andrew Sean Greer, John Grisham, David Henry Hwang, Matthew Klam, George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult, Stacy Schiff, James Shapiro, and others. Their filings (here and here) mark a turning point in the case, putting the defendant companies’ guilty knowledge and reckless actions at the center of the narrative.
Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger observed, “These filings reveal shocking disdain for writers and their work through repeated, intentional decisions to steal books rather than pay for them with full knowledge that their products will destroy the careers of authors. OpenAI pursued its mass piracy scheme even in the face of clear evidence that doing so would degrade American culture by substituting human works with AI slop and would put thousands of writers out of work. We are grateful to our entire legal team for uncovering and telling this critical story.”
Alongside equally scorching but separate revelations in a brief filed by news media organizations, the authors’ brief reveals:
- OpenAI and Microsoft Knew Their Systems Would Replace Human Writers –OpenAI Policy Director Jack Clark stated in May 2020: “Our work on AI and Creativity is going to increasingly lead to us creating systems that substitute for the labor of [] people . . . The better we do on GPT-X, the more worried genre fiction authors will become about us substituting for them on Amazon.” He then doubled down: “Our work in this area will make people unemployed. . . There will be a point where a bunch of artists express worry about what we’re doing here and we’ll likely ignore their concerns and release anyway . . .”
- “Autocompleting” Other People’s Work – OpenAI hired Tarun Gogineni in 2022 to lead its efforts to improve the writing quality of its models. Gogineni stated his “research mission” was to have GPT models write the “last two books of [Martin’s] A Song of Ice and Fire” series by “finishing it one day.” Gogineni even mused that he would “rest easy knowing that even if GRRM [George R. R. Martin] dies early, GPT-5 will autocomplete his series.”
- “Acceptable Economic Disruption.” – “Although [Gogineni] was aware of authors’ complaints that the ‘datasets are stolen’ and that authors were losing work to AI-generated competition, he did not find those complaints ‘all that sympathetic’ and instead viewed them as ‘acceptable economic disruption.’ He wrote that the world would soon experience ‘the death of the reader’ as ‘machines creat[ed] slop for more machines.’”
- Microsoft Knew OpenAI Used Pirated Books from the Start – “Microsoft knew about OpenAI’s use of LibGen as early as April 2019 when Sam Altman and Dario Amodei presented an early version of GPT-3 to Bill Gates and disclosed the use of LibGen to Gates and Microsoft’s Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott, among others.”
- OpenAI Feared “Optics,” Not the Law – “Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s then-Research Director, responded that ‘as a training set [LibGen is] a bit sketchier.’ [OpenAI researcher Sam] McCandlish explained: ‘I was just worried about optics – i.e. ‘openai uses copyrighted data from sketchy russian website’ showing up on [Hacker News] would be unfortunate.”
- They Tried to Hide the Evidence – In an effort to cover its tracks the company called “Project Clear,” OpenAI deleted its LibGen files in the summer of 2022. “On June 15, 2022, in an OpenAI Slack channel, [OpenAI Corporate Designee] Paino asked: ‘general q: how concerned are we about mentions of libgen? (they’re all over google docs/slack/github . . .). That evening, [OpenAI VP of Research Bob] McGrew wrote to Paino and Nicholas Ryder: “Given how much OpenAI is in the news, now is the right time to excise Libgen from our systems and storage. What would be involved in that?’”
All quotes taken from Class Plaintiffs’ Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (Docket 1982) and Class Plaintiffs’ Corrected Rule 56.1 Statement of Undisputed Material Facts (Docket 1987).
This briefing was filed in the class action case brought on behalf of the Authors Guild and book copyright owners, Alter v. OpenAI and Microsoft, with lead counsel Justin A. Nelson from Susman Godfrey. The case is part of multidistrict litigation against those defendants pending in Manhattan. We expect more briefing over the next couple months and a hearing in early 2027.
About the Authors Guild and Authors Guild Foundation
With more than 18,000 members, the Authors Guild is the nation’s oldest and largest professional organization for published writers. It advocates on behalf of working writers to protect free speech, freedom of expression, and authors’ copyrights; fights for fair contracts and authors ability to earn a livable wage; and provides a welcoming community for writers and translators of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and journalism. Through its educational and charitable arm, the Authors Guild Foundation, it also offers free programming to teach working writers about the business of writing, as well as organizing public events that highlight the importance of a rich, diverse American literary culture and the authors who contribute to it.
Become a Member
Join the Guild and support our work to protect authors’ rights.
Join now