May 2025 – Chat GPT Is Eating the World

Who will decide fair use first — Judge Alsup or Judge Chhabria?

Two cases in the Northern District of California have had oral arguments on the respective defendant’s motion for summary judgment on fair use: Kadrey v. Meta and Bartz v. Anthropic. Both involve lawsuits brought by book authors. Both involve the defendant’s use of so-called pirated books datasets, or shadow libraries, which defendants contend were used…
Read more: Who will decide fair use first — Judge Alsup or Judge Chhabria?
Parties in Andersen v. Stability AI fight over whether Dr. Ben Y. Zhao, co-creator of Nightshade tool for prompt-specific poisoning attacks v. AI models, should get access to confidential source code of AI companies

Interesting controversy brewing in the Andersen v. Stability AI lawsuit over one of the plaintiffs’ expert, Dr. Ben Y. Zhao, the Neubauer Professor of Computer Science of the University of Chicago. Zhao is serving as an expert in this case, Bartz v. Anthropic, and Authors Guild v. OpenAI and Alter v. OpenAI. The controversy stems…
Read more: Parties in Andersen v. Stability AI fight over whether Dr. Ben Y. Zhao, co-creator of Nightshade tool for prompt-specific poisoning attacks v. AI models, should get access to confidential source code of AI companies
Magistrate Judge van Keulen grants Anthropic’s request to seal names of 2 datasets used to train Claude

Anthropic scored a big discovery victory last week. Magistrate Judge van Keulen granted Anthropic’s request to seal the names of 2 datasets it used to train its AI model, Claude. AI companies are guarding the names of the datasets they used to train like their crown jewels, especially after the copyright lawsuits started. Excerpt from…
Read more: Magistrate Judge van Keulen grants Anthropic’s request to seal names of 2 datasets used to train Claude
Magistrate Judge van Keulen strikes part of Anthropic’s Olivia Chen’s declaration that had AI-generated citation; it “undermines the overall credibility of Ms. Chen’s written declaration.”

In Concord Music v. Anthropic, Magistrate Judge van Keulen ruled on the parties’ dispute over several discovery items. The most controversial relates to the dispute over the amount of prompts and outputs that Anthropic must provide to respond to “Publishers’ requests for prompts and outputs from Claude products that relate to song lyrics, for which…
Read more: Magistrate Judge van Keulen strikes part of Anthropic’s Olivia Chen’s declaration that had AI-generated citation; it “undermines the overall credibility of Ms. Chen’s written declaration.”
Bartz v. Anthropic parties file briefs on Google Books initial copying and fair use. Judge Alsup also tells parties he’s likely to go inactive status before end of 2025.

At Thursday’s hearing on Anthropic’s motion for summary judgment on fair use, Judge William Alsup told the parties he’s inclined to find in favor of Anthropic’s fair use defense (though he could change his mind). But he asked the parties to brief a question on the main precedent relied on by Anthropic: “(1) “In the…
Read more: Bartz v. Anthropic parties file briefs on Google Books initial copying and fair use. Judge Alsup also tells parties he’s likely to go inactive status before end of 2025.
I tested out Google’s Veo video generator. Mind blowing.

I just tested Google’s new video generator called Veo. Mind blowing. Here’s my prompt: “Show a cute goldendoodle wearing wraparound sunglasses skateboarding down a hill on a street in San Francisco, with a streetcar in the background.” Here’s the first video (in 720 p, though option for 1020 p): Then I did a second variation…
Read more: I tested out Google’s Veo video generator. Mind blowing.
70% of graduate students in AI research in US are international students

From today’s Wall Street Journal editorial on the Trump Administration’s battle against Harvard University, an astonishing statistic: “The National Foundation for American Policy finds that “immigrants have founded or cofounded nearly two-thirds (65% or 28 of 43) of the top AI companies in the United States, and 70% of full-time graduate students in fields related…
Read more: 70% of graduate students in AI research in US are international students
Judge Bibas issues opinion explaining certification of fair use, copyrightability issues for interlocutory appeal

Judge Bibas issued an opinion today further explaining the reasons he granted Ross Intelligence’s request to certify two questions (on copyrighability of Westlaw headnotes and fair use in AI training) to the Third Circuit for interlocutory appeal. I expect the Third Circuit will grant it–and think they should. DOWNLOAD JUDGE BIBAS’S DECISION
Read more: Judge Bibas issues opinion explaining certification of fair use, copyrightability issues for interlocutory appeal
Judge Stein issues case management order for MDL suits v. OpenAI

What a busy day it was. The first conference for the 13 lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft convened. Judge Stein appointed the leadership counsel for the newspaper cases, but asked the class plaintiffs (for the book authors’ suits) to select a single interim class counsel, contrary to their proposal for a committee approach. Wow, that…
Read more: Judge Stein issues case management order for MDL suits v. OpenAI
Shira Perlmutter v. Todd Blanche, Donald Trump Complaint (PDF)

Shira Perlmutter has sued Todd Blanche, Donald Trump, Paul Perkins, and others for her termination as the Register of Copyrights. The PDF of the complaint is below, along with the memorandum in support of their motion for a temporary restraining order. Here’s the theory of the case: The Librarian of Congress has the authority to…
Read more: Shira Perlmutter v. Todd Blanche, Donald Trump Complaint (PDF)

Month: May 2025