Publisher Penguin Random House has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI, concerning the German children’s book series Der kleine Drache Kokosnuss (Coconut the Dragon) by author and illustrator Ingo Siegner.
According to the publisher, even simple queries directed at ChatGPT – OpenAI’s flagship large language model – prompt the system to reproduce excerpts from the books and generate images closely resembling the original character. Additionally, ChatGPT reportedly suggested generating complete books, including covers and text, for publication.
Penguin Random House interprets these responses as indications that the books were potentially used without authorisation to train the language model. The publisher argues that this constitutes illegal storage and further distribution of the content.
After OpenAI did not respond to an official request from the publisher, a lawsuit was filed on 27 March at the court in Munich. Penguin Random House emphasised that the protection of intellectual property remains a high priority, “even in the age of artificial intelligence.”
