Bio of Judge Stein
- Age: 79
- Education: Yale Law School (JD, 1972); Princeton (AB, 1967)
- Private practice from 1974 – 1995
- Nominated to federal district judge in 1995 by President Bill Clinton
- Notable fair use decisions
- Graham v. Prince, 265 F. Supp. 3d 366 (S.D.N.Y. 2017) (no fair use by Richard Prince in reuse of photography by photograph Rastafarian Smoking a Joint by Donald Graham, which Prince copied from Instagram)
- Lennon v. Premise Media Corp., 556 F. Supp. 2d 310 (S.D.N.Y. 2008) (rejecting preliminary injunction because defendants likely to prevail on fair use in 15 seconds of “Imagine” song/sound recording used in movie on intelligent design: the “two lines of the song that they believe envision a world without religion: ‘Nothing to kill or die for/ And no religion too.’ (“Imagine” lyrics, Ex. D to Weber Decl.) As one of the producers of ‘Expelled’ explains, the filmmakers paired these lyrics and the accompanying music to a sequence of images that ‘provide a layered criticism and commentary of the song.’”).
The Multi District Litigation panel granted the petition to transfer all copyright lawsuits v. OpenAI and Microsoft to Judge Sidney Stein in the Southern District of New York. Judge Stein already presides over 6 cases involving OpenAI and Microsoft.
He will now preside over:
from Northern District of California
TREMBLAY, ET AL. v. OPENAI, INC., ET AL., C.A. No. 3:23−03223 SILVERMAN, ET AL. v. OPENAI, INC., ET AL., C.A. No. 3:23−03416 CHABON, ET AL. v. OPENAI, INC., ET AL., C.A. No. 3:23−04625 (from Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín) (another books case)
MILLETTE v. OPENAI, INC., ET AL., C.A. No. 5:24−04710 (from Judge Davila) (YouTube videos)
from Southern District of New York
AUTHORS GUILD, ET AL. v. OPENAI, INC., ET AL., C.A. No. 1:23−08292 ALTER, ET AL. v. OPENAI, INC., ET AL., C.A. No. 1:23−10211, BASBANES, ET AL. v. MICROSOFT CORPORATION, ET AL., C.A. No. 1:24−00084 (“books” cases)
THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY v. MICROSOFT CORPORATION, ET AL., C.A. No. 1:23−11195, DAILY NEWS LP, ET AL. v. MICROSOFT CORPORATION, ET AL., C.A. No. 1:24−03285, THE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING, INC. v. OPENAI, INC., ET AL., C.A. No. 1:24−04872 (“newspaper cases”)
RAW STORY MEDIA, INC., ET AL. v. OPENAI, INC., ET AL., C.A No. 1:24−01514 (from Judge McMahon)
THE INTERCEPT MEDIA, INC. v. OPENAI, INC., ET AL., C.A. No. 1:24−01515 (from Judge Rakoff)
Here’s the new map of cases showing the transfer of cases to Judge Stein, sitting as an MDL judge.
Here’s the new map of cases in PDF with clickable links to each docket.
Here’s the panel’s decision granting the petition to transfer cases to an MDL court (Judge Stein).
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