Unsealed filings: OpenAI, Microsoft knew book piracy was illegal

Unsealed Authors Guild briefs filed Sept 17-18 in *Alter v. OpenAI and Microsoft* (MDL No. 25-md-03143, S.D.N.Y.) quote an internal 2019 OpenAI note: "We trained GPT-3 on pirated stuff! No sharing that!" The exhibits also show Microsoft learned of the LibGen book-piracy use by April 2019 (Altman/Amodei demo to Bill Gates and Kevin Scott), after which OpenAI ran a summer-2022 purge of its LibGen files ("Project Clear"). Named plaintiffs include Grisham, Martin, Franzen, Picoult, and Baldacci.