Book authors Lyon and Kleiner filed their consolidated copyright complaint against Adobe.
But the bigger news was a novel shareholder derivative action filed by SEIU Pension Plan Master Trust, a shareholder of Adobe, against Shantanu Narayen and other Adobe executives. The plaintiff’s theory is that Adobe executives breached their fiduciary duty by training their AI models on copyrighted works:
This is a “stockholder derivative action brought by plaintiff [the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Pension Plan Master Trust] on behalf of Adobe against certain of its officers and directors for adopting and implementing an unlawful business strategy whereby Adobe used copyrighted material to develop its Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) services.”
SEIU Pension Plan Master Trust v. Narayen is the first shareholder derivative action against a public company based on its activity in training AI models using copyrighted works.
It probably won’t be the last.
Excerpt:
DOWNLOAD THE SHAREHOLDER DERIVATIVE COMPLAINT:
DOWNLOAD THE COPYRIGHT COMPLAINT IN LYON V. ADOBE