Synopsis
Publishing giant Penguin Random House announced a lawsuit against OpenAI on Tuesday, alleging that the AI-powered ChatGPT violated copyright by mimicking and reproducing content from a German children's book series.ChatGPT readily churned out illustrations and other content from Ingo Siegner's "Coconut the Little Dragon" series after simple user prompts "that are virtually indistinguishable from the original", according to a statement from its German-language publishing group, Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe.
"ChatGPT proactively makes suggestions for creating a print-ready manuscript, including copyright-infringing cover art and blurbs," Penguin Random House alleged in the press release.
The AI chatbot also offered users "specific instructions for posting on self-publishing platforms" about the knockoff work.
The lawsuit was filed on Friday with a court in Munich against OpenAI's Ireland-based European subsidiary, the statement said.
The publishing group had previously demanded that OpenAI remove the material from ChatGPT in a letter, but had received no response, it said.
Penguin Random House argued that the ease with which ChatGPT reproduced uncanny copies of Siegner's original work "is clear evidence" that the illustrator's books "were unlawfully used to train the AI system".
AFP was not immediately able to reach OpenAI for comment.
"We are fundamentally open to the opportunities offered by AI, but at the same time, the protection of intellectual property is our top priority," said Carina Mathern, the Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe publisher for children's and young-adult books.
German media conglomerate Bertelsmann, which owns Penguin Random House, had previously inked a deal with OpenAI and ChatGPT in January 2025 to collaborate on projects.
But the deal did not grant OpenAI access to Bertelsmann's media archives.
The German Publishers and Booksellers Association welcomed the lawsuit as "an important step towards urgently needed regulation of generative AI".
OpenAI has faced a slew of similar lawsuits from authors and publishers over allegations that the company illegally trained its artificial intelligence models on copyrighted works.
In November, a German court ruled that OpenAI had infringed copyright law by using song lyrics to train its artificial intelligence without licences.
