OpenAI Researcher Subpoenaed in Copyright Lawsuit

Alec Radford, a prominent AI researcher who previously worked at OpenAI, has been subpoenaed in a copyright lawsuit against the company, according to a recent court filing. Kyle Wiggers reported in TechCrunch that the filing, titled In re OpenAI ChatGPT Litigation and dated March 4, 2025, pertains to a subpoena served to Radford in February.

Radford played a crucial role in the development of OpenAI. He was the lead author of the company’s seminal research paper on generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs).

The lawsuit, brought by authors including Sarah Silverman, Paul Tremblay, and Michael Chabon, alleges that OpenAI infringed their copyrights by using their work to train AI models like ChatGPT. The plaintiffs also argued that ChatGPT infringed their works by liberally quoting those works without attribution.

OpenAI asserts its use of copyrighted material is in the public interest and falls under fair use doctrine. While some claims have been dismissed, the court has allowed the direct infringement claim to proceed.

Radford joined OpenAI in 2016, a year after its founding, and contributed to several major AI projects, including the GPT series, the speech recognition model Whisper, and the image-generating model DALL-E. He left the company in 2023 to pursue independent research.

The authors’ attorneys also seek depositions from former OpenAI employees Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann, who now lead Anthropic. Motions compelling their testimony are contested.

On March 5, a US magistrate judge ruled that Amodei must sit for questioning about his work for OpenAI in two copyright cases, including a case filed by the Authors Guild.