Category: Lawsuits

Daily News plaintiffs follow New York Times’ strategy in seeking to drop contributory infringement claims v. OpenAI and trademark dilution claims as well

The legal claims are dropping like hot potatoes in In re OpenAI Copyright Infringement Litigation. The Daily News and other news plaintiffs are following the New York Times’ strategy in asking Judge Stein to allow them to abandon, with prejudice, their claims for contributory infringement against OpenAI, in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in…
Read more: Daily News plaintiffs follow New York Times’ strategy in seeking to drop contributory infringement claims v. OpenAI and trademark dilution claims as well
New York Times abandons contributory infringement claim v. OpenAI in light of Supreme Court’s Cox decision

After OpenAI filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings that the New York Times could not meet the intent standard for contributory infringement set forth by the Supreme Court in Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment, we wrote: “OpenAI’s brief seems quite strong in its explanation of the Supreme Court’s decision in Cox.“ The New…
Read more: New York Times abandons contributory infringement claim v. OpenAI in light of Supreme Court’s Cox decision
35 Local & Regional Newspapers sue OpenAI, Microsoft for alleged copyright infringement. 26th suit v. OpenAI and 11th v. Microsoft.

35 local and regional newspaper publishers just sued OpenAI and Microsoft for alleged copyright infringement in the training of their AI models with content of plaintiffs scraped from the web. The Complaint alleges: (1) direct infringement, (2) vicarious infringement, and (3) DMCA CMI removal. Most likely, this lawsuit will be stayed pending the resolution of…
Read more: 35 Local & Regional Newspapers sue OpenAI, Microsoft for alleged copyright infringement. 26th suit v. OpenAI and 11th v. Microsoft.
Judge Anderson assigned Das v. Meta copyright suit in South Carolina

The just filed copyright lawsuit Das v. Meta has been assigned to Judge Joseph Anderson in the District of South Carolina, Columbia Division. Here is the docket.
Read more: Judge Anderson assigned Das v. Meta copyright suit in South Carolina
Meta says Kadrey’s motion to certify downloading ruling doesn’t meet standard for interlocutory appeal

Meta has filed its opposition to the book authors Kadrey’s motion asking Judge Chhabria to certify his ruling on Meta’s downloading of book copies from so-called shadow libraries for an interlocutory appeal to the Ninth Circuit. Meta says Kadrey has not met the requirements for an interlocutory appeal. Excerpts: DOWNLOAD’S META’S OPPOSITION Related Story
Read more: Meta says Kadrey’s motion to certify downloading ruling doesn’t meet standard for interlocutory appeal
Parallel litigation in 100-plus copyright suits v. AI companies produces litigation quagmire. Resolution looks far off.

Today, we are launching the AI Status Copyright Cases Tracker. It depicts all 118 copyright lawsuits against AI companies in the United States by the stage of litigation: pre-discovery, discovery, summary judgment, interlocutory and direct appeals, and Supreme Court. It also depicts how the same AI companies are commonly facing multiple lawsuits filed by different…
Read more: Parallel litigation in 100-plus copyright suits v. AI companies produces litigation quagmire. Resolution looks far off.
Magistrate Judge Richlin mostly denies Midjourney’s motion to compel discovery re: Disney’s own use or development of AI and prompts used to generate examples from Midjourney not used in Complaint

Magistrate Judge Richlin mostly denied Midjourney’s attempt to get discovery of Disney’s own use or development of AI. Judge Richlin found such use irrelevant to Midjourney’s fair use defense, citing a similar ruling in the In re OpenAI Copyright Infringement Litigation. The judge also ruled that Disney’s prompts used to generate allegedly infringing outputs on…
Read more: Magistrate Judge Richlin mostly denies Midjourney’s motion to compel discovery re: Disney’s own use or development of AI and prompts used to generate examples from Midjourney not used in Complaint
Shakespeare sues Anthropic & Dario Amodei for copyright infringement. New suit filed by 100 authors. Plaintiffs seek up to $71.4 million from Anthropic.

As Anthropic’s valuation as a company grows so do the number of copyright lawsuits against it. Today, Thomas William Shakespeare from London, along with 99 other authors, sued Anthropic, CEO Dario Amodei, and co-founder Benjamin Mann in the Northern District of California. All 100 authors allegedly opted out of the Bartz class settlement (with Laura…
Read more: Shakespeare sues Anthropic & Dario Amodei for copyright infringement. New suit filed by 100 authors. Plaintiffs seek up to $71.4 million from Anthropic.
Book publishers sue WeLib, “a free digital library platform offering over 43 million books and 98 million academic papers”

After getting a default judgment against Anna’s Archive, Apress Media and other big book publishers are suing WeLib, “a free digital library platform offering over 43 million books and 98 million academic papers.” This is copyright lawsuit No. 116. Excerpt: DOWNLOAD THE COMPLAINT:
Read more: Book publishers sue WeLib, “a free digital library platform offering over 43 million books and 98 million academic papers”
Proposed-Intervenor Dr. Kenneth Saladin loses bid to intervene in Elsevier v. Meta to represent subclass of textbook authors v. publishers

Judge Castel denied, without prejudice and subject to a possible renewed motion when class certification is considered, the motion of Proposed-Intervenor Dr. Kenneth Saladin, a distinguished professor emeritus of biology at Georgia College & State University. Saladin proposed to represent a subclass of textbook authors in the copyright suit mainly publishers filed against Meta and Mark…
Read more: Proposed-Intervenor Dr. Kenneth Saladin loses bid to intervene in Elsevier v. Meta to represent subclass of textbook authors v. publishers