Apple has been sued in the United States over allegations that it illegally used copyrighted books to train its artificial intelligence systems without the consent of authors.
The proposed class action, filed on Friday in a California federal court by writers Grady Hendrix and Jennifer Roberson, accuses the tech giant of copying protected works to develop its “OpenELM” large language models.
“Apple has not attempted to pay these authors for their contributions to this potentially lucrative venture,” the lawsuit states.
The case adds to a wave of legal battles between technology companies and rights holders over AI training practices. Last week, AI startup Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle claims from authors alleging their works were used without permission, marking what lawyers described as the largest copyright settlement in history.
Other tech giants, including Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI, have also faced similar lawsuits from authors and publishers who claim their intellectual property was misused to build AI tools.
Apple and the plaintiffs’ lawyers have not immediately commented on the case.
