Eco123 Revista da Economia e Ecologia
What is so-called “artificial intelligence” and what is it allowed to do? Steal drawings from existing works and distribute them under its own name? Is so-called artificial intelligence, to put it simply, nothing more than “copy paste”?
“We are committed to the protection of human creativity and want to achieve fair conditions for authors and creatives in the age of artificial intelligence.” This is according to Carina Mathern, a member of the management board of the Penguin Random House publishing group, which is taking legal action against copyright infringements by AI systems, and has filed a lawsuit with the Munich Regional Court against OpenAI Ireland Ltd., provider of the AI chatbot ChatGPT. We see the copyrights of our author and illustrator Ingo Siegner in the contents of his book series »The Little Dragon Coconut« violated.
The author and illustrator, born in 1965 in Hanover, Germany, primarily publishes children’s literature. ChatGPT, a chatbot, reproduces content from Ingo Siegner’s copyrighted works in a recognizable form, even with simple input. The chatbot also generates illustrations of the character “Little Dragon Coconut” (five million copies sold in Europe) that are virtually indistinguishable from the original. Furthermore, ChatGPT proactively offers suggestions for creating a print-ready manuscript, including copyright-infringing cover art and blurbs, as well as specific instructions for posting on self-publishing platforms.
The publishing group, which comprises more than 40 publishing houses in the UK and Germany, considers the copyright of its author and illustrator Ingo Siegner to be infringed in the content of his book series “Little Dragon Coconut.” ChatGPT reproduces content from Ingo Siegner’s copyrighted works in a recognizable form, even with simple input. The chatbot also generates illustrations of the character “Coconut the Little Dragon” that are virtually indistinguishable from the original. There is clear evidence that Ingo Siegner’s works were unlawfully used to train the AI system and are now stored in the model as so-called “memory.” This is comparable to storing copyrighted content that the system can reproduce upon user request. From the perspective of the Penguin Random House publishing group, the described output also constitutes unauthorized reproduction and public dissemination. The publishing group therefore considers the copyrights of its author and illustrator Ingo Siegner, as well as the exclusive usage and exploitation rights of its publisher cbj (Carl Bertelsmann Jugendbuchverlag), to have been infringed. It is demanding damages for its illustrator and for the publisher.
Another aspect of the lawsuit aims to create transparency for readers. Appropriate safeguards are to be implemented to prevent human author names from being used for content that was primarily generated by AI.
Despite being given a deadline, OpenAI did not respond to the Penguin Random House publishing group’s request for a cease and desist order and disclosure of information. Therefore, a lawsuit was filed at the Munich Regional Court at the end of March 2026. Carina Mathern: “Human creativity is and remains at the heart of our work as publishers. We are therefore primarily committed to the interests of our authors and creative professionals. We are fundamentally open to the opportunities offered by AI, but at the same time, the protection of intellectual property is our top priority. With this lawsuit, we, as the Penguin Random House publishing group, want to contribute to effectively protecting copyrights in the age of artificial intelligence and ensuring fair conditions for creative professionals.”
OpenAI, Inc. is a US-based software company that has been researching artificial intelligence (AI) since the end of 2015. Initially, OpenAI’s goal was to develop so-called “artificial intelligence” on an open-source basis. The company was initially a non-profit organization. In 2019, the for-profit subsidiary OpenAI Global, LLC was founded, with Microsoft as its largest investor. The non-profit OpenAI Foundation holds a stake of approximately 26 percent in OpenAI Group PBC. OpenAI is best known for developing the Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (GPT) — also known as GenAI — and the software products derived from it, such as ChatGPT and DALL-E. Sam Altman is the CEO. The American scientist Stephen Hawking and the British scientist Stuart Jonathan Russell, who lives and teaches in California, warned that if artificial intelligence is left to its own devices, an intelligence explosion is imminent. One consequence could be the replacement of genuine, creative intelligence with artificial intelligence that is not bound by human values. The theft of intellectual property seems to be the appropriate way to demonstrate what so-called artificial intelligence is capable of and the dangers it poses.
