SAN FRANCISCO (Oct. 7, 2025) — Two novelists have filed a lawsuit against Salesforce, accusing the tech giant of using their books without permission to train its xGen AI language models.
Authors Molly Tanzer and Jennifer Gilmore allege that Salesforce violated copyright law by incorporating their novels — and potentially thousands of others — into its AI datasets. The suit, filed by attorney Joseph Saveri, calls for greater transparency and fair compensation for creators whose work fuels AI systems.
“It’s important that companies that use copyrighted material for AI products are transparent,” Saveri said. “It’s also only fair that our clients are fairly compensated when this happens.”
Salesforce has not publicly commented on the lawsuit.
Why it matters: The case underscores a growing tension between creative ownership and corporate AI training, as authors and artists push back against how their work is repurposed by powerful tech companies without consent.
