For those using ChatGPT, if anything you post is used in a lawsuit against OpenAI, OpenAI can send you the bill for the court case (attorney fees and such) whether OpenAI wins or loses.
Examples:
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A defamation case by an Australian mayor because ChatGPT incorrectly stated that he had served prison time for bribery: https://www.reuters.com/technology/australian-mayor-readies-worlds-first-defamation-lawsuit-over-chatgpt-content-2023-04-05/
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OpenAI sued for defamation after ChatGPT fabricates legal accusations against radio host: https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/9/23755057/openai-chatgpt-false-information-defamation-lawsuit
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Sarah Silverman sues OpenAI for copyright infringement: https://lemmy.ml/post/1905056
Attorney talking about their ToS (same link as post link): https://youtu.be/fOTuIhOWFXU?t=268
https://openai.com/policies/terms-of-use 7. Indemnification; Disclaimer of Warranties; Limitations on Liability (a) Indemnity. You will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless us, our affiliates, and our personnel, from and against any claims, losses, and expenses (including attorneys’ fees) arising from or relating to your use of the Services, including your Content, products or services you develop or offer in connection with the Services, and your breach of these Terms or violation of applicable law.
How is this applicable? A copyright lawsuit isn’t bound by the TOS or any other document produced by the infringer. If this were the case, I could just write my own get out of jail free cards.
Hypothetical on this one, if the reason they decided to look into this was because they saw someone’s post on social media about ChatGPT being able to reproduce parts of some copyrighted work, ChatGPT could bill the user for publishing that info.
It doesn’t even have to be the sole reason for them to look into it. Technically they could bill anyone who posted content if that content wound up being used as evidence against OpenAI in any way (as I understand it, that’s where the “relating to your use of the Services” part could be used).
But if I have misunderstood something about this hypothetical, please feel free to correct me.