Copyright laws are some of the clearest, easiest to enforce laws on the books. You simply can't use/reprint/distribute copyrighted material without the written consent of and/or paying the copyright holder. Period.
It is important to note that it is up to the copyright holder to defend the copyright. If a copyright holder knowingly lets someone use the material without written consent and/or payment, the copyrighted material becomes public domain and is no longer copyrighted.
This is why we are seeing these lawsuits. I guarantee you that more will come.
"OpenAI recently
admitted that it's literally "impossible" to create tools like ChatGPT without copyrighted material from the internet"
Then you better re-think your business model. All of this "AI" junk is going to be seriously derailed by this. "Fair Use" does not mean using any amount - that YOU deem acceptable - of copyrighted material for free. The copyright holders determine this, not you. You will HAVE to pay up.
That's the whole purpose of copyrights. It is - literally - the Right To Copy.
Which means you will have to charge everyone that uses "AI", every time they use it. Or you will have to NOT include copyrighted material from everyone who sues you. And if you are not paying the copyright holders, the number of people suing you is only going to grow.
"Legally, copyright law does not forbid training," OpenAI added.
Really? What if schools used illegally copied books for "training" students? Do you really think they could get away with that? The schools BUY the required books and lend them to the students. In college, each student BUYS the required books.
In neither case are the students provided free, bootleg copies by the school/college. The copyright holders ARE PAID for their copyrighted materials. Period.
Otherwise it does not get used by the school/college. Period.