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Unsealed Briefs in Authors’ Case v. Microsoft/OpenAI

631 points · 623 comments · papergirl

  1. Betelbuddy · · focus · HN ↗
    The Title should be: "Top Execs Knew Their Mass Book Piracy Was Illegal And Would Put Authors Out of Work"
    1. grey-area · · focus · HN ↗
      It was certainly illegal and morally questionable.

      So far there’s no sign that authors are being put out of work, but the internet, social media and low end book stores like Amazon kindle are being flooded with LLM slop, which is its own form of deep cultural damage.

      No long-form writing I’ve seen is anything approaching even a genre potboiler standard. It’s still aimless, filled with contradiction and cliche and in that peculiar breathless teenager style that LLMs affect.

      1. class3shock · · focus · HN ↗
        This - "So far there’s no sign that authors are being put out of work"

        is a contradiction to this - "but the internet and low end book stores like Amazon kindle are being flooded with LLM slop."

        I'm not sure there there are labor statistics to look at but it seems impossible that the coming-into-existance of a tool that generates mass amounts of cheap product, with zero skill required, in a field wouldn't displace skilled workers in that field.

        - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.economist.com&#x2F;leaders&#x2F;2026&#x2F;09&#x2F;24&#x2F;dont-let-ai-kill-the-author" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.economist.com&#x2F;leaders&#x2F;2026&#x2F;09&#x2F;24&#x2F;dont-let-ai-kil... - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&#x2F;technology&#x2F;2026&#x2F;09&#x2F;ai-authors-impersonating-writers-amazon&#x2F;688709&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&#x2F;technology&#x2F;2026&#x2F;09&#x2F;ai-authors-im... - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fortune.com&#x2F;2026&#x2F;09&#x2F;14&#x2F;ai-slop-books-amazon-marketplace-publishing-human-authors&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fortune.com&#x2F;2026&#x2F;09&#x2F;14&#x2F;ai-slop-books-amazon-marketpl...

        1. rpdillon · · focus · HN ↗
          Why would it be impossible? You&#x27;re discounting the most probable case, which is that the AI writing is not a substitute for a skilled writer.

          Edit: Turns out both Judge Alsup and Judge Chhabria agree that this is not obvious and would need to be defended. Here&#x27;s Chhabria&#x27;s statement on the evidence for market dilution:

          &gt; As for the potentially winning argument—that Meta has copied their works to create a product that will likely flood the market with similar works, causing market dilution—the plaintiffs barely give this issue lip service, and they present no evidence about how the current or expected outputs from Meta’s models would dilute the market for their own works.

          When the plaintiffs don&#x27;t even attempt to argue the point, that&#x27;s pretty telling.

          1. orbisvicis · · focus · HN ↗
            Either authors are all equally highly skilled, or we care only about defending the good ones...
            1. grey-area · · focus · HN ↗
              We only care about defending the good ones. Why would we want to defend badly written human output?
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