The Authors Guild — September 21, 2026
\nExplosive new documents released 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 expressed disdain for human authorship.
\nPlaintiffs include The Authors Guild and writers including David Baldacci, Taylor Branch, Michael Connelly, Sylvia Day, Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham, George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult, and others. Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger: filings reveal “repeated, intentional decisions to steal books rather than pay for them with full knowledge that their products will destroy the careers of authors.”
\nQuotes are drawn from Class Plaintiffs’ Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (Docket 1982) and Corrected Rule 56.1 Statement (Docket 1987). The case is part of multidistrict litigation in Manhattan; a hearing is expected in early 2027.
\nSource: authorsguild.org
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