Book Reports Potentially Copyright Infringing, Thanks To Court Attacks On LLMs

from the the-ai-copyright-panic dept

A federal judge just ruled that computer-generated summaries of novels are “very likely infringing,” which would effectively outlaw many book reports. That seems like a problem.

The Authors Guild has one of the many lawsuits against OpenAI, and law professor Matthew Sag has the details on a ruling in that case that, if left in place, could mean that any attempt to merely summarize any copyright covered work is now possibly infringing. You can read the ruling itself here.

This isn’t just about AI—it’s about fundamentally redefining what copyright protects. And once again, something that should be perfectly fine is being treated as an evil that must be punished, all because some new machine did it.

But, I guess elementary school kids can rejoice that they now have an excuse not to do a book report.

To be clear, I doubt publishers are going to head into elementary school classrooms to sue students, but you never know with the copyright maximalists.

Sag highlights how it could have a much more dangerous impact beyond getting kids out of their homework: making much of Wikipedia infringing.

A new ruling in Authors Guild v. OpenAI has major implications for copyright law, well beyond artificial intelligence. On October 27, 2025, Judge Sidney Stein of the Southern District of New York denied OpenAI’s motion to dismiss claims that ChatGPT outputs infringed the rights of authors such as George R.R. Martin and David Baldacci. The opinion suggests that short summaries of popular works of fiction are very likely infringing (unless fair use comes to the rescue).

This is a fundamental assault on the idea, expression, distinction as applied to works of fiction. It places thousands of Wikipedia entries in the copyright crosshairs and suggests that any kind of summary or analysis of a work of fiction is presumptively infringing.

Short summaries of copyright-covered works should not impact copyright in any way. Yes, as Sag points out, “fair use” can rescue in some cases, but the old saw remains that “fair use is just the right to hire a lawyer.” And when the process is the punishment, saying that fair use will save you in these cases is of little comfort. Getting a ruling on fair use will run you hundreds of thousands of dollars at least.

Copyright is supposed to stop the outright copying of the copyright-protected expression. A summary is not that. It should not implicate the copyright in any form, and it shouldn’t require fair use to come to the rescue.

Sag lays out the details of what happened in this case:

Judge Stein then went on to evaluate one of the more detailed chat-GPT generated summaries relating to A Game of Thrones, the 694 page novel by George R. R. Martin which eventually became the famous HBO series of the same name. Even though this was only a motion to dismiss, where the cards are stacked against the defendant, I was surprised by how easily the judge could conclude that:

“A more discerning observer could easily conclude that this detailed summary is substantially similar to Martin’s original work, including because the summary conveys the overall tone and feel of the original work by parroting the plot, characters, and themes of the original.”

The judge described the ChatGPT summaries as:

“most certainly attempts at abridgment or condensation of some of the central copyrightable elements of the original works such as setting, plot, and characters”

He saw them as:

“conceptually similar to—although admittedly less detailed than—the plot summaries in Twin Peaks and in Penguin Random House LLC v. Colting, where the district court found that works that summarized in detail the plot, characters, and themes of original works were substantially similar to the original works.” (emphasis added).

To say that the less than 580-word GPT summary of A Game of Thrones is “less detailed” than the 128-page Welcome to Twin Peaks Guide in the Twin Peaks case, or the various children’s books based on famous works of literature in the Colting case, is a bit of an understatement.

Yikes. I’m sorry, but if you think that a 580-word computer-generated summary of a massive book is infringing, then we’ve lost the plot when it comes to copyright law. If it were, then copyright itself would need to be radically changed to allow for basic forms of human speech. If I see a movie and tell my friend what it was about, that shouldn’t implicate copyright law, even if it summarizes “the plot, characters, and themes of the original work.”

Sag then ties this to what you can find for countless creative works on Wikipedia:

To see why the latest OpenAI ruling is so surprising, it helps to compare the ChatGPT summary of A Game of Thrones to the equivalent Wikipedia plot summary. I read them both so you don’t have to.

The ChatGPT summary of a Game of Thrones is about 580 words long and captures the essential narrative arc of the novel. It covers all three major storylines: the political intrigue in King’s Landing culminating in Ned Stark’s execution (spoiler alert), Jon Snow’s journey with the Night’s Watch at the Wall, and Daenerys Targaryen’s transformation from fearful bride (more on this shortly) to dragon mother across the Narrow Sea. In this regard, it is very much like the 800 word Wikipedia plot summary. Each summary presents the central conflict between the Starks and Lannisters, the revelation of Cersei and Jaime’s incestuous relationship, and the key plot points that set the larger series in motion.

And, look, if you want to see the chilling effects on speech created by over expansive copyright law, well:

I could say more about their similarities, but I’m concerned that if I explored the summaries in any greater detail, the Authors Guild might think that I am also infringing George R. R. Martin’s copyright, so I’ll move on to the minor differences.

You can argue that Sag, an expert on copyright law, is kind of making a joke here, but it’s no actual joke. Just the fact that someone even needs to consider this shows how bonkers and problematic this ruling is.

As Sag makes clear, there are few people out there who would legitimately think that the Wikipedia summary should be deemed infringing, which is why this ruling is notable. It again highlights how lots of people, including the media, lawmakers, and now (apparently) judges, get so distracted by the “but this new machine is bad!” in looking at LLM technology that they seem to completely lose the plot.

And that’s dangerous for the future of speech in general. We shouldn’t be tossing out fundamental key concepts in speech (“you can summarize a work of art without fear”) just because some new kind of summarization tool exists.

Filed Under: copyright, derivative works, expression, generative ai, llms, summaries

Companies: authors guild, openai, wikipedia