ChatGPT now blocks direct requests to mimic an author's writing style

OpenAI added new behavior to ChatGPT that blocks requests to directly copy a specific author's writing style, targeting what one report describes as an author's "broad qualities." The change comes amid growing legal scrutiny of AI models trained on copyrighted text.

Why it matters: Style itself generally isn't protectable under copyright law, so a voluntary guardrail like this suggests OpenAI is getting ahead of "style theft" complaints from authors rather than waiting for courts to settle the question, following legal pressure from earlier training-data lawsuits. It could set a norm other AI labs follow to preempt similar backlash.