Earlier this week, a number of high-profile authors, including John Grisham and George R. R. Martin of “Game of Thrones” fame, announced they’re suing ChatGPT maker OpenAI, claiming its large language models are violating their copyright. It’s yet another sign that OpenAI is in serious legal trouble following several copyright lawsuits, and the number of plaintiffs just keeps on growing. Grisham in particular, a former attorney who has built an expansive and highly successful career in publishing legal thrillers — often about lawyers taking on powerful entities — might have OpenAI quaking in its boots. Striking Hollywood writers and actors form the background of the lawsuit, with talks breaking down in July over the use of AI in the industry, among other issues ranging from inadequate pay to unfair revenue-sharing practices. “It is imperative that we stop this theft in its tracks or we will destroy our incredible literary culture, which feeds many other creative industries in the US,” said Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger in a statement about the new suit. In the suit, the authors claim that OpenAI’s “LLMs endanger fiction writers’ ability to make a living, in that the LLMs allow anyone to generate — automatically and freely (or very cheaply) — texts that they would otherwise pay writers to create.” These texts could also be “material that is based on, mimics, summarizes, or paraphrases” their writing and that without it, OpenAI “would have no commercial product with which to damage — if not usurp — the market for…OpenAI Trembles as John Grisham Joins Lawsuit Targeting ChatGPT