George R.R. Martin's copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI survives motion to dismiss

on November 03, 2025

The Ruling

In a decision issued on October 28, 2025, U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein in New York ruled that the authors presented plausible arguments that the text generated by ChatGPT could be considered "substantially similar" to their original, copyrighted works, which might violate their copyrights.

Case Status

The denial of the motion to dismiss is a significant procedural victory for the authors, as it allows their claims to move forward in court.

Judge's Reasoning

The judge's decision highlighted that the authors may be able to prove their claims. As an example, the judge analyzed a ChatGPT-generated summary of Martin's A Game of Thrones and found it described the story's setting and specific details drawn from the original work, suggesting potential infringement.

Next Steps

The case will now move past the initial pleading stage, and the parties will engage in the process of gathering and presenting discovery.

Since the launch and rapid growth of ChatGPT to the public in 2022, Generative AI has become one of the biggest global talking points. AI systems can write entire novels after a couple of prompts. The results aren't nearly as good as what humans can produce, but it's become ubiquitous enough to fool a lot of people. Plus, it trains from copyrighted material, including some of the most relevant and iconic works.

The artificial intelligence issue is problematic in just about every way you look at it. ChatGPT itself is terrible for the environment, and it also has plenty of moral and ethical issues surrounding it. Because of how it gathers its catalog of knowledge, drawing from an enormous dataset of books, articles, and so on. The usage of copyrighted material has resulted in big copyright infringement claims. Several authors have launched class-action lawsuits, including Michael Chabon and Jia Tolentino.

The Authors Guild, representing a collective of big name writers including A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin. The lawsuit against OpenAI is gaining a lot of traction. In a court ruling in late October, U.S. District Judge Stein stated that a ChatGPT-generated idea may have breached Martin's copyright. The prompt saw ChatGPT generate an alternative sequel to the A Clash of Kings that would see the story veer in a radically different direction to A Storm of Swords. The AI decided to give the novel the title "A Dance With Shadows."

The lawsuit represents a proposed class of nonfiction authors, which includes "at least tens of thousands of authors" whose works were allegedly copied without authorization. The court will ultimately decide the final class definition during the certification process. The Authors Guild has initiated lawsuits against various AI companies, including OpenAI and Microsoft, for copyright infringement. These lawsuits aim to address unauthorized use of authors' works to train generative AI models.

Key Plaintiffs in the Lawsuit

The following are notable plaintiffs in the Authors Guild's lawsuit:

• Julian Sancton: Nonfiction author who filed the initial complaint.

• Jia Tolentino: Council member of the Authors Guild.

• James Shapiro: Council member of the Authors Guild.

• Daniel Okrent: Advisory council member.

• Wade Hampton Sides: Advisory council member.

• Jonathan Alter: Author and member of the Authors Guild.

• Taylor Branch: Author and member of the Authors Guild.

• Eugene Linden: Author and member of the Authors Guild.

• Stacy Schiff: Author and member of the Authors Guild.

• Simon Winchester: Author and member of the Authors Guild.

• Kai Bird: Author.

• Rich Cohen: Author.

Key Issues

Firstly, that the practice of training AI models on copyrighted material is clear infringement. Secondly, that OpenAI downloaded many books from 'shadow libraries,' which are filled with pirated content. Lastly, they're arguing that ChatGPT's answers are too similar to the books it's trained on. 

Judge Stein permitted the shadow library argument to proceed separately from the other two, essentially giving authors another front on which to attack OpenAI in court. It notes that in copyright infringement cases such as this one, a defendant can't be fined more than once for the same instance of infringement. In other words, if the authors can successfully prove OpenAI's guilt in any one of their claims, they'll win, and the judge just gave them another avenue to do so in.

The Law

Copyright in General

Under the Copyright Act of 1976, copyright duration usually extends fifty years plus the life of the author. However, numerous exceptions exist depending on the type of work and its particular application. This increased period of protection for copyrighted works further illustrates the trend in federal copyright law towards even greater defense of the rights of artists, authors, and inventors with respect to their original works against infringement.

Copyright Infringement

is the unauthorized use of copyrighted material in a manner that violates one of the copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works that build upon it.

Copyright infringement laws in the United States are primarily governed by Title 17 of the U.S. Code, which outlines the rights of copyright holders and the penalties for infringement. Key sections include 17 U.S.C. § 501, which defines infringement, and 17 U.S.C. § 506, which addresses criminal copyright infringement, specifying that willful infringement for commercial gain can lead to felony charges.