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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\nConnelly has joined forces with some of the world\u2019s biggest literary names against OpenAI (Image: Netflix)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n\n
Bestselling crime writer Michael Connelly has revealed his will contains strict instructions that no other author can continue the Harry Bosch franchise after his death as he fights a lawsuit accusing artificial intelligence of stealing his work.<\/p>\n
The Bosch Legacy and Lincoln Lawyer creator is part of a class action against OpenAI \u2013 the multi-billion dollar company behind the controversial ChatGPT programme \u2013 for breach of copyright over the use of his novels to teach its own creation how to write. Connelly, 67, has joined forces with some of the world\u2019s biggest literary names \u2013 including John Grisham, Jonathan Franzen, Jodi Picoult and Game of Thrones creator George R R Martin \u2013 in seeking damages against OpenAI in the US test case.<\/p>\n
He was contacted, he explains, by trade body the Authors\u2019 Guild after its researchers quizzed ChatGPT about Bosch and asked the programme if it could write a sequel to one of Connelly\u2019s novels featuring the relentless LAPD detective.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt said \u2018yes\u2019, so they called me up and told me,\u201d Connelly explains. \u201cThat would freak anybody out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt AI is going to be positive \u2013 it\u2019s already hugely positive in fields like medicine \u2013 but it threatens the creative process and takes people\u2019s creations without consent, compensation or control.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, that\u2019s just wrong. So they didn\u2019t really have to convince me to join the lawsuit. When they told me what was happening with my work, I just said, \u2018I\u2019m in\u2019. When it hit the media, I kind of felt, \u2018Wow, I\u2019m in pretty good company here\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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The stakes, the former journalist admits, are high for everyone involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re taking on the future, in many ways. I don\u2019t know if some people see this as just a move to get money. To me, it\u2019s about controlling your own creative processes and what happens to what you create.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the same time, I think lives are being saved because of AI in medical applications. So it\u2019s not like I\u2019m mister non-digital or \u00adanti-AI. By coincidence, I have a little bit of a debate about it in my new book.\u201d<\/p>\n
Published earlier this month, Resurrection Walk sees Bosch, now a private detective, and his half-brother Mickey Haller, AKA the Lincoln Lawyer, seeking to free a woman they believe was wrongly jailed for the \u00admurder of her Sheriff\u2019s deputy ex-husband.<\/p>\n
After 40 years of locking up criminals, the ex-homicide detective will only look into cases of convicted people who claim they\u2019re innocent. But the pair suffer a setback when the evidence they believe helps exonerate their client is thrown out of court because AI-related testimony is not yet allowed in Federal cases in the US.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took DNA a \u00adlong time to be accepted in courts in my country,\u201d says Connelly. \u201cAI will eventually be accepted. It just hasn\u2019t been yet. But that\u2019s the kind of stuff I love doing. Having Mickey think he\u2019s just won the case… then taking it away from him. That kind of stuff is a really fun thing to strategise and write.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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It\u2019s not the only crossing point between the brilliant new book and the real world, of which more shortly, but continuing on the AI theme, Connelly reveals a clause in his will to stop anyone \u2013 human or computer \u2013 \u00adwriting Bosch after their respective deaths.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s specific to Bosch. I don\u2019t know what would happen to Mickey Haller or my other characters,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I\u2019ve gotten this opportunity to write about Harry for 30-plus years and I want to end that series. So there should be no reason for him to be dug up from the grave and written about again by somebody else.<\/p>\n
\u201cI talked about it with my family, and said, \u2018If you want to find someone who keeps writing Lincoln Lawyers or whatever, I don\u2019t have a problem with that. I\u2019m not going to be around\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut at the end of my days as a writer, the \u00adcharacter who will stand up for me is Harry Bosch, and I don\u2019t want that devalued by anyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Appearing at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate last year, Connelly told a packed audience he\u2019d been thinking for the last decade or so of how he would end the series: \u201cI have been very lucky… being able to write about this character in real-time for 30 years. It seems to me to be my duty to carry it from beginning to end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today he reveals he was closer than he previously admitted to killing off Harry Bosch, who appeared in last year\u2019s Desert Star, world-weary, melancholic and suffering with chronic myeloid leukaemia due to radiation exposure from an \u00adearlier case. And his detective, it emerges, had a fascinating stay of execution.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\nManuel Garcia-Rulfo as Mickey Haller in The Lincoln Lawyer (Image: Netflix)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n\n
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\u201cDesert Star was the end of a long book contract and I was going to turn 66 when I turned it in. So for two or three years, I was thinking I was gonna wrap it up and Desert Star was gonna be the last book.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen something happened when I was writing it and I got renewed energy. I signed another contract, so Harry\u2019s still around.\u201d But having written himself into \u00ada corner, as it were, with Bosch\u2019s cancer, help came from the real world among the legions of Connelly fans.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got emails from doctors saying, \u2018I know exactly what he has, and there are some clinical programs that are showing great success containing that form of cancer\u2019,\u201d Connelly smiles. \u201cSo I started a conversation with one of these doctors doing clinical trials and it became about prolonging life for Harry.\u201d<\/p>\n
So a real-life MD got in touch to say, \u2018I can save the life of your fictional character because I love him so much\u2019?<\/p>\n
Talk about art imitating life.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cYes, the doctor treating Harry in the book, Dr Austin Ferras, is named after the guy. It\u2019s just a lucky break that he touches enough people that, even though he\u2019s a \u00adfictional character, a real cancer doctor would reach out and say, \u2018I have this fix\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s perhaps just as well. Aside from Connelly\u2019s books, seven hit seasons of the Amazon Prime TV adaptation, Bosch, \u00adstarring veteran US character actor Titus Welliver, 61, and a brilliant ensemble cast, have morphed into two further seasons of FreeVee spin-off, Bosch Legacy, with another one already commissioned.<\/p>\n
All of which makes Bosch the longest-\u00adrunning streaming character in the world.<\/p>\n
The spin-off has expanded the Bosch universe with lawyer Honey Chandler (introduced and killed off in Connelly\u2019s third book, The Concrete Blonde, 1994), played brilliantly on-screen by Mimi Rogers, and Bosch\u2019s daughter Maddie, portrayed by Madison Lintz, 24, coming to the fore.<\/p>\n
Other stars include Stephen Chang, as hacker Mo, and Denise Sanchez as Maddie\u2019s fellow cop Reina Vasquez.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s spreading the storytelling out which I really enjoy. What\u2019s amazing is not only that he\u2019s the longest-running character in streaming, but I think this season, the ninth in total, is the best of all,\u201d says Connelly.<\/p>\n
Of Lintz, Connelly, who has sold 85 million books, continues: \u201cWe didn\u2019t know what we would get 10 years ago when she\u2019d been on one episode of The Walking Dead. She wasn\u2019t a major character in the first season. So we thought, \u2018Let\u2019s give her a try and we can always recast if it doesn\u2019t work out\u2019. Now she\u2019s become this amazing actress.\u201d<\/p>\n
Equally, Welliver himself, who shares writing credits with Connelly on two episodes of Bosch Legacy, has inhabited the character, though his collection of real-life tattoos was not something Connelly ever envisioned for Bosch, who in the books has a single \u2018tunnel rat\u2019 inking from his time in Vietnam.<\/p>\n
When I wonder if the show\u2019s going to have to address them, the author smiles: \u201cYou\u2019re noticing things more than I hoped people would. Titus has an ever-adding collection. I guess we should show him in a tattoo shop in some episode.\u201d<\/p>\n
Resurrection Walk is the seventh novel featuring the Lincoln Lawyer, who first appeared as the titular hero of Connelly\u2019s 2005 book, then played by Matthew McConaughey in a big-screen version in 2011. While Connelly\u2019s books have increasingly cross-pollinated with one another, sadly televisions can\u2019t do the same.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\nMichael Connelly says of his battle of OpenAI -\u201cWe\u2019re taking on the future, in many ways (Image: David Livingston)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n\n
Over on Netflix, the new television adaptation of The Lincoln Lawyer is now in its sophomore season starring Manuel Garcia-Rulfo with a totally different vibe to Bosch.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t take credit for that,\u201d says the author. \u201cThat\u2019s really a lot of different creative people on the show team, but also the influence of Netflix being very specific in what they wanted that show to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all, music to my ears, they wanted to be loyal to the books. And they wanted a Mexican-American Mickey Haller, which comes from the books.\u201d<\/p>\n
Has Garc\u00eda-Rulfo taken the Lincoln Lawyer\u2019s crown from McConaughey then?<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I think he has,\u201d Connelly chuckles. \u201cMatthew is an iconic actor, but we went the same way we did with Bosch in casting a journeyman like Titus; a really good actor, but not a household name. It was the same with Manuel. He\u2019s well known in Mexico but he wanted to break out on a bigger stage.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Today Connelly jokes it would take an Act of Congress to allow the two rival streaming services to share a character, so the chances of a TV crossover are unlikely.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be cool if they met, but it\u2019s Amazon and Netflix so I don\u2019t see anything like that ever happening. But you know what, I get two really distinct shows, so I can\u2019t categorise that as a regret.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is good news for fans, though. Connelly reveals his third major character, Ren\u00e9e Ballard, is currently in development for another Amazon show.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a writing room working on a Ballard show and we\u2019re hoping that, when we have scripts, Amazon will pull the trigger. I think there\u2019s a really good chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also on the cards is another book, which he plans to start work on, as is his tradition, the Monday after Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/picture>Resurrection Walk by Michael Connelly [FREE]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
As for his current novel, already hailed as another Connelly classic by fans and critics, its title, Resurrection Walk, refers not only to the moment a prisoner jailed for life is finally, against all the odds, able to go free but also to Mickey Haller himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about Mickey resurrecting his zeal for the law and realising he has to go in a new direction,\u201d Connelly adds.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the key part to me of the book, the process of him coming to realise, \u2018My old ways are not going to work anymore\u2019. I expect next time we see him, he\u2019ll have a smaller operation and be more focused.\u201d<\/p>\n
Might it, perhaps, also refer to Connelly giving his favourite character a new lease of life too, I wonder? Fans can but hope the pioneering \u00adreal-world treatment being trialled on Harry Bosch carries on working… so his \u00admission can continue.<\/p>\n
\nResurrection Walk<\/em> by Michael Connelly (Orion, \u00a322) is out now. Visit expressbookshop.com or call Express Bookshop on 020 3176 3832. Free UK P&P on orders over \u00a325<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n[ad_2]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[ad_1] Connelly has joined forces with some of the world\u2019s biggest literary names against OpenAI (Image: Netflix) Bestselling crime writer Michael Connelly has revealed his will contains strict instructions that no other author can continue the Harry Bosch franchise after his death as he fights a lawsuit accusing artificial intelligence of stealing his work. The …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1023],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12140"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}