The new theory of “copyright shareholder derivative” lawsuit is spreading.
Adobe already faces 2 such lawsuits. Now Microsoft was just hit with another such lawsuit.
The Complaint alleges that Microsoft directors and officers breached their fiduciary duties by investing in OpenAI and providing Microsoft’s Azure infrastructure to enable OpenAI to train its models using unlicensed, allegedly infringing copyrighted works.
The Complaint also alleges that these defendants approved 2024 and 2025 proxy statements to defeat shareholder proposals that raised concerns about the possible copyright infringement and lawsuit(s) filed against Microsoft.
For example, the 2024 proxy statement by Microsoft, partly quoted in the Complaint, stated this about the datasets Microsoft used:
The 2025 proxy statement included similar language.
Anderson, the plaintiff, alleges that Microsoft made various misrepresentations. Anderson alleges “(a) that Microsoft had violated federal copyright laws in the formulation of its AI strategy and its partnership with AI companies like OpenAI.” Paragraph 94. Other allegations include:
The complaint includes other alleged missteps and misstatements related to Microsoft’s AI products, including CoPilot, not summarized here.
This AI-related copyright lawsuit is the 12th lawsuit against Microsoft in the United States, by my unofficial count.
Excerpt from Anderson Complaint:
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DOWNLOAD THE COMPLAINT IN ANDERSON V. NADELLA
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