NYT reporter John Carreyrou and five other writers sue xAI, Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Meta, and Perplexity, accusing them of pirating their books to train AI (Blake Brittain/Reuters)

xAI, Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Meta, and Perplexity's alleged use of pirated books to train AI, as accused by NYT reporter John Carreyrou and five other writers, marks a significant concern over copyright infringement and data sourcing in the AI industry. This development has crucial implications for website owners, as it may lead to increased scrutiny of AI-generated content on their platforms. If AI models are trained on pirated materials, website owners may inadvertently host copyrighted content, potentially making them liable for copyright infringement. This could result in takedown notices, lawsuits, or damage to their reputation. To mitigate these risks, website owners should monitor AI bot traffic on their sites, ensuring that AI-generated content does not violate copyright laws. They can also review their llms.txt files to understand which AI models are accessing their content and update their policies accordingly. Additionally, website owners should consider implementing content filters or AI detection tools to identify and remove potentially infringing AI-generated content, protecting themselves from potential copyright disputes.