An investigative reporter best known for exposing fraud at Silicon Valley blood-testing startup Theranos sued Elon Musk’s xAI, Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Meta Platforms and Perplexity on Monday for using copyrighted books without permission to train their artificial intelligence systems.

New York Times reporter and “Bad Blood” author John Carreyrou filed the lawsuit in California federal court with five other writers, accusing the AI companies of pirating their books and feeding them into the large language models (LLMs) that power the companies’ chatbots.

The lawsuit is one of several copyright cases brought by authors and other copyright owners against tech companies over the use of their work in AI training. The case is the first to name xAI as a defendant.

Spokespeople for the defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit.

Unlike other pending cases, the writers are not seeking to band together in a larger class action – a type of lawsuit they said favours defendants by allowing them to negotiate a single settlement with many plaintiffs.

“LLM companies should not be able to so easily extinguish thousands upon thousands of high-value claims at bargain-basement rates,” the complaint said.

Anthropic reached the first major settlement in an AI-training copyright dispute in August, agreeing to pay $1.5 billion to a class of authors who said the company pirated millions of books.

The new lawsuit said class members in that case will receive “a tiny fraction (just 2%) of the Copyright Act’s statutory ceiling of $150,000” per infringed work.

Monday’s complaint was filed by attorneys at law firm Freedman Normand Friedland, including Kyle Roche, whom Carreyrou profiled in a 2023 New York Times article.

During a November hearing in the Anthropic class action, US District Judge William Alsup criticised a separate law firm Roche co-founded for gathering authors to opt out of the settlement in search of “a sweeter deal.” Roche declined to comment on Monday.

Carreyrou told the judge at a later hearing that stealing books to build its AI was Anthropic’s “original sin” and that the settlement did not go far enough.

• Bill limits most gun owners to four firearms, 10 for farmers.
• Main opposition Liberal party backs amendments.
• Three-quarters of Australians want tougher gun laws, shows poll.

Australia’s most populous state is set to pass tougher gun laws, ban the display of terrorist symbols and curb protests after the state parliament’s lower house cleared a bill late on Monday in an emergency sitting following the Bondi mass shooting.

The terrorism and other legislation amendment bill won support from the opposition Liberal Party in New South Wales state, and is expected to clear the upper house on Tuesday.

The ruling centre-left Labour government has proposed capping most individual gun licences at four firearms and allowing up to 10 for farmers.

Fifteen people were killed and dozens were injured in the mass shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Bondi on December 14, a shock attack that has prompted calls for tougher gun laws and stronger action against antisemitism.

Police said one alleged gunman, Sajid Akram, 50, who was shot dead by officers, owned six firearms. His 24-year-old son Naveed, faces 59 charges, including murder and terrorism.

Although Australia tightened gun laws after a 1996 shooting that killed 35 people, a police firearms registry showed more than 70 people in New South Wales, which includes Sydney, each own over 100 guns. One licence holder has 298 guns.

A Sydney Morning Herald poll on Tuesday found three-quarters of Australians want tougher gun laws. The rural-focused National Party opposed the gun reforms in New South Wales, saying the amendments would disadvantage farmers.

The federal government has also pledged reforms, including tighter gun controls and a gun buyback plan but has resisted calls to set up a royal commission, the most powerful type of government inquiry, into the attack.

Instead, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who is facing mounting criticism from opponents who argue his government has not done enough to curb a rise in antisemitism, has announced an independent review of intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

“We need to get to these answers quickly, and we cannot be waiting around for years, which is what a royal commission would take,” Defence Minister Richard Marles told ABC News on Tuesday.