Tag: privacy

privacy rights

Generative-AI: The Top 12 Lawsuits

Artificial intelligence (“AI”) is generating more than content; it is generating lawsuits. Here is a brief chronology of what I believe are the most significant lawsuits that have been filed so far.

Artificial intelligence (“AI”) is generating more than content; it is generating lawsuits. Here is a brief chronology of what I believe are some of the most significant lawsuits that have been filed so far.

Prompt asking ChatGPT to write a blog post in style of Thomas B James

Most of these allege copyright infringement, but some make additional or other kinds of claims, such as trademark, privacy or publicity right violations, defamation, unfair competition, and breach of contract, among others. So far, the suits primarily target the developers and purveyors of generative AI chatbots and similar technology. They focus more on what I call “input infringement” than on “output infringement.” That is to say, they allege that copyright infringement is involved in the way particular AI tools are trained.

Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH et al. v. ROSS Intelligence, Inc.

Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH et al. v. ROSS Intelligence Inc., No. 20-cv-613 (D. Del. 2020)

Thomson Reuters alleges that ROSS Intelligence copied its Westlaw database without permission and used it to train a competing AI-driven legal research platform. In defense, ROSS has asserted that it only copied ideas and facts from the Westlaw database of legal research materials. (Facts and ideas are not protected by copyright.) ROSS also argues that its use of content in the Westlaw database is fair use.

One difference between this case and subsequent generative-AI copyright infringement cases is that the defendant in this case is alleged to have induced a third party with a Westlaw license to obtain allegedly proprietary content for the defendant after the defendant had been denied a license of its own. Other cases involve generative AI technologies that operate by scraping publicly available content.

  • Update: The court has now issued a fair use decision in Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence. After reviewing the headnotes and comparing them with the database materials, Judge Bilbas concluded that 2,243 headnotes were sufficiently creative and original to receive copyright protection, that Ross infringed them, and that “fair use” was not a defense in this instance because the purpose of the use was commercial and it competed in the same market. This decision might have limited value as a precedent, since it involved non-generative AI. Generative AI tools may be distinguishable in the fair use analysis. The district court approved Ross’s motion for interlocutory appeal. The case is under review by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

Doe 1 et al. v. GitHub, Inc. et al.

Doe 1 et al. v. GitHub, Inc. et al., No. 22-cv-06823 (N.D. Calif. November 3, 2022)

This is a class action lawsuit against GitHub, Microsoft, and OpenAI that was filed in November, 2022. It involves GitHub’s CoPilot, an AI-powered tool that suggests lines of programming code based on what a programmer has written. The complaint alleges that Copilot copies code from publicly available software repositories without complying with the terms of applicable open-source licenses. The complaint also alleges removal of copyright management information in violation of 17 U.S.C. § 1202, unfair competition, and other tort claims.

Updates: The court dismissed most of the plaintiffs’ claims, but allowed them to proceed with claims for breach of open-source licenses and granted leave to amend the DMCA claims in the complaint.

Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint. The court, however, dismissed the DMCA claim, reasoning that the statute imposes an “identicality” standard (i.e., the AI’s output must be an exact, literal copy of the plaintiff’s work). Because plaintiffs alleged that Copilot’s outputs often generate modified versions of their original code rather than strict identical copies, the court dismissed the claim.

Judge Tigar certified the question whether identicality is required for interlocutory appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

Andersen et al. v. Stability AI et al.

Andersen et al. v. Stability AI et al., No. 23-cv-00201 (N.D. Calif. Jan. 13, 2023)

Update: Read my case update on Andresen v. Stability AI. 

  • Further Updates: As noted in my first update on Anderson v. Stability, Judge Orrick dismissed all claims except for Andersen’s direct infringement claim against Stability. Most of the dismissals, however, were granted with leave to amend.

Trial is scheduled for 2027.

Getty Images v. Stability AI

Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint, having secured proper copyright registrations for the underlying art. Defendants filed a motion to dismiss it. The court denied the motion. The ruling on the motion suggests that copied images scraped into the training datasets can constitute direct infringement, and that AI models may inherently constitute a continuous, new form of infringing materials. The court also allowed the artists’ claims regarding false endorsement and trade-dress infringement to proceed. These claims address AI tools mimicking an artist’s name and style.

Getty Images v. Stability AI, No. 23-cv-00135-UNA (D. Del. February 23, 2023)

Getty Images has filed two lawsuits against Stability AI, one in the United Kingdom and one in the United States, each alleging both input and output copyright infringement. Getty Images owns the rights to millions of images. It is in the business of licensing rights to use copies of the images to others. The lawsuit also accuses Stability AI of falsifying, removing or altering copyright management information, trademark infringement, trademark dilution, unfair competition, and deceptive trade practices.

Stability AI has moved to dismiss the complaint filed in the U.S. for lack of jurisdiction.

Updates: Getty voluntarily dismissed the Delaware case and refiled the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Getty Images v. Stability AI, No. 3:25-cv-06891 (N.D. Calif. 2025).

In 2026, Judge Thompson dismissed the DMCA claim, but allowed claims for direct copyright infringement, trademark violation, and unfair competition to proceed.

Getty Images dropped the input-infringement copyright claim that it had filed in the U.K., primarily because it could not definitively prove where the model was trained (i.e., whether it was inside or outside the UK).

The UK court rejected Getty Images’s argument that the Stable Diffusion software itself was an “infringing copy” of an article imported into the UK. The court ruled that AI model weights are not copies; they are abstract statistical parameters that do not store or reproduce actual images.

Getty Images prevailed on trademark claims in the U.K., however.

Flora et al. v. Prisma Labs, Inc.

Flora et al. v. Prisma Labs, Inc., No. 23-cv-00680 (N.D. Calif. February 15, 2023)

Jack Flora and others filed a class action lawsuit against Prisma Labs for invasion of privacy. The complaint alleges, among other things, that the defendant’s Lensa app generates sexualized images from images of fully-clothed people, and that the company failed to notify users about the biometric data it collects and how it will be stored and/or destroyed, in violation of Illinois’s data privacy laws.

Update: The court granted a motion to compel arbitration.

Young v. NeoCortext, Inc.

Young v. NeoCortext, Inc., 2023-cv-02496 (C.D. Calif. April 3, 2023)

This is a publicity rights case. NeoCortext’s Reface app allows users to paste images of their own faces over those of celebrities in photographs and videos. Kyland Young, a former cast member of the Big Brother reality television show, has sued NeoCortext for allegedly violating his publicity rights. The complaint alleges that NeoCortext has “commercially exploit[ed] his and thousands of other actors, musicians, athletes, celebrities, and other well-known individuals’ names, voices, photographs, or likenesses to sell paid subscriptions to its smartphone application, Reface, without their permission.”

NeoCortext has asserted a First Amendment defense, among others.

Update: U.S. District Judge Wesley L. Hsu denied NeoCortext’s motion to dismiss. Judge Hsu ruled that Young’s right of publicity claim was not preempted by the Copyright Act because he was seeking to vindicate the misuse of his personal likeness, not just the distribution of copyrighted images. The app’s face-swapping capabilities did not qualify as a “transformative use” defense as a matter of law at the dismissal stage.

Walters v. OpenAI, LLC

Walters v. OpenAI, LLC, No. 2023-cv-03122 (N.D. Ga. July 14, 2023) (Complaint originally filed in Gwinnett County, Georgia Superior Court on June 5, 2023; subsequently removed to federal court)

This is a defamation action against OpenAI, the company responsible for ChatGPT. The lawsuit was brought by Mark Walters. He alleges that ChatGPT provided false and defamatory misinformation about him to journalist Fred Riehl in connection with a federal civil rights lawsuit against Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson and members of his staff. ChatGPT allegedly stated that the lawsuit was one for fraud and embezzlement on the part of Mr. Walters. The complaint alleges that Mr. Walters was “neither a plaintiff nor a defendant in the lawsuit,” and “every statement of fact” pertaining to him in the summary of the federal lawsuit that ChatGPT prepared is false. A New York court recently addressed the questions of sanctions for attorneys who submit briefs containing citations to non-existent “precedents” that were entirely made up by ChatGPT. This is the first case to address tort liability for ChatGPT’s notorious creation of “hallucinatory facts.”

In July, 2023, Jeffery Battle filed a complaint against Microsoft in Maryland alleging that he, too, has been defamed as a result of AI-generated “hallucinatory facts.” Battle v. Microsoft.

Update on Walters v. OpenAI, LLC: In 2025, the court granted summary judgment in favor of OpenAI, on three grounds:

  • No Factual Statement: The court ruled that a reasonable reader would not interpret the ChatGPT output as stating actual facts. This was heavily influenced by the AI’s internal disclaimers, its warning to the user that it lacked access to the referenced document, and the user’s own admission that he quickly verified the claim was false.
  • No Fault or Malice: To win a defamation claim as a public figure, Walters needed to prove OpenAI acted with negligent disregard for truth or “actual malice.” The court found he failed to provide evidence of either. OpenAI successfully argued that it leads the AI industry in reducing such “hallucinations” through training and human feedback.
  • Lack of Damages: The court noted Walters did not suffer provable damages or ask OpenAI for a retraction before filing, making him ineligible to recover the punitive or presumed damages he sought.

P.M. et al. v. OpenAI LP et al.

P.M. et al. v. OpenAI LP et al., No. 2023-cv-03199 (N.D. Calif. June 28, 2023)

This lawsuit has been brought by underage individuals against OpenAI and Microsoft. The complaint alleges the defendants’ generative-AI products ChatGPT, Dall-E and Vall-E collect private and personally identifiable information from children without their knowledge or informed consent. The complaint sets out claims for alleged violations of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act; the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act; California’s Invasion of Privacy Act and unfair competition law; Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act, Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, and Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act; New York General Business Law § 349 (deceptive trade practices); and negligence, invasion of privacy, conversion, unjust enrichment, and breach of duty to warn.

Update: Plaintiffs filed a voluntary dismissal.

Tremblay v. OpenAI, Inc.

Tremblay v. OpenAI, Inc., No. 23-cv-03223 (N.D. Calif. June 28, 2023)

Another copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI relating to its ChatGPT tool. In this one, authors allege that ChatGPT is trained on the text of books they and other proposed class members authored, and facilitates output copyright infringement. The complaint sets forth claims of copyright infringement, DMCA violations, and unfair competition.

Updates: The court dismissed claims of vicarious copyright infringement, Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) violations, negligence, and unjust enrichment. Claims for direct copyright infringement of the input kind, and unfair trade practices, survived.

The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation centralized dozens of AI copyright lawsuits against OpenAI into a single venue: U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York under Judge Sidney H. Stein. In Re OpenAI, Inc. Copyright Infringement Litigation. Tremblay is included in this consolidation. .

Silverman et al. v. OpenAI

Silverman et al. v. OpenAI, No. 23-cv-03416 (N.D. Calif. July 7, 2023)

Sarah Silverman (comedian/actress/writer) and others allege that OpenAI, by using copyright-protected works without permission to train ChatGPT, committed direct and vicarious copyright infringement, violated section 17 U.S.C. 1202(b), and their rights under unfair competition, negligence, and unjust enrichment law.

Updates: In February 2024, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín issued a joint ruling covering both the Tremblay and Silverman motions to dismiss. The court dismissed claims of vicarious copyright infringement, negligence, and unjust enrichment, but allowed the input infringement claim to proceed. OpenAI did not contest that using the plaintiffs’ books to train its Large Language Models (LLMs) required a “fair use” determination

On June 25, 2025 Judge Chhabria issued a ruling on fair use. The court granted Meta’s motion for summary judgment on fair use with respect to AI training; reserved the motion for summary judgment on the DMCA claims for decision in a separate order, and held that the claim of infringing distribution via leeching or seeding “will remain a live issue in the case.”

The case has been consolidated into the broader Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) pending in the Southern District of New York.

Kadrey et al. v. Meta Platforms

Kadrey et al. v. Meta Platforms, No. 2023-cv-03417 (N.D. Calif. July 7, 2023)

The same kinds of allegations as are made in Silverman v. OpenAI, but this time against Meta Platforms, Inc.

Update: There has been a ruling in Kadrey v. Meta Platforms. 

J.L. et al. v. Alphabet Inc. et al.

J.L. et al. v. Alphabet Inc. et al. (N.D. Calif. July 11, 2023)

This is a lawsuit against Google and its owner Alphabet, Inc. for allegedly scraping and harvesting private and personal user information, copyright-protected works, and emails, without notice or consent. The complaint alleges claims for invasion of privacy, unfair competition, negligence, copyright infringement, and other causes of action.

Update: Plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed defendants Alphabet Inc. and Google DeepMind. Google LLC remains the sole defendant, and the litigation—now tracked as In re Google Generative AI Copyright Litigation—is proceeding.

On the regulatory front

The U.S. Copyright Office is examining the problems associated with registering copyrights in works that rely, in whole or in part, on artificial intelligence. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has suggested that generative-AI implicates “competition concerns.”. Lawmakers in the United States and the European Union are considering legislation to regulate AI in various ways.

Update on Copyright Office Reports: The Copyright Office has issued reports in three parts:

Part 1: Digital Replicas

Released on July 31, 2024, this initial part addresses the unauthorized use of AI to realistically replicate an individual’s voice or appearance (e.g., deepfakes and AI-generated music tracks mimicking famous artists). The Copyright Office recommends that Congress enact a new federal law to protect individuals from unauthorized digital replica distributions. See Copyright and Artificial Intelligence Part 1 -Digital Replicas.

Part 2: Copyrightability

This Report addresses whether and to what extent AI-generated output is protected by copyright. Key findings and conclusions:

  • Prompts are Insufficient: Text prompts generally function merely as instructions to convey unprotectable ideas. Because a user does not exercise ultimate creative control over how the AI generates the final material, prompts alone do not establish human authorship.
  • AI as a Creative Tool: If a human author maintains sufficient control over the expressive elements, the work can be protected. For example, if a creator inputs their own hand-drawn art and uses AI to refine it, the original perceptible human work remains copyrightable.
  • Modifications and Arrangements: Humans can claim copyright over the creative selection, coordination, arrangement, or expressive modification of AI-generated content. However, protection only applies to the human-contributed elements, not the AI-generated parts. The Copyright Office mandates transparency. Authors submitting registration applications have a duty to disclose and disclaim any AI-generated content within their applications that is more than minor (de minimis)
  • No New Laws Needed: The Office concluded that existing legal frameworks are flexible enough to evaluate AI cases on a case-by-case basis without need for new legislation.

See Copyright and Artificial Intelligence Part 2 – Copyrightability.

Part 3. Generative-AI Training

This report deals with copyright issues associated with the use of copyrighted works in generative-AI training, especially input infringement.

  • Fair Use Limitations: Using commercial troves of copyrighted works to build models that directly compete with original authors likely stretches past fair use boundaries.
  • The Role of Licensing: The Office highlighted that voluntary licensing markets are already actively emerging across the music and news sectors.

See Copyright and Artificial Intelligence Part 3 – Generative AI Training.

For more updates, see my full AI Lawsuits Roundup.”

For a wealth of information about copyright law, visit my extensive Copyright FAQs page.

Trump’s Executive Order on AI

News media headlines are trumpeting that the Executive Order preempts state AI laws. This is not true. It directs this administration to try to strike down some state AI laws. It contemplates working with Congress to formulate and enact preemptive legislation. It is doubtful that a President could constitutionally preempt state laws by executive order.

On December 11, 2025, President Trump issued another executive order. This one is intended to promote “national dominance” in “a race with adversaries for supremacy.” To “win,” the Order says, AI companies should not be encumbered by state regulation. “The policy of the United States,” the Order says, is “to sustain and enhance the United States’ global AI dominance through a minimally burdensome national policy framework for AI.” It sets up an AI Litigation Task Force to challenge state AI laws that allegedly do not do that.

Excepted from the Order are state laws on child safety protections, data center infrastructure, and state government use of AI.

Which State AI Laws?

The Order speaks generally about “state AI laws,” but does not define the term. In fact, AI legal issues are wide-ranging. Here are some examples of state AI laws:

Stalking and Harassment

A North Dakota statute criminalizes using a robot to frighten or harass another person. It defines a robot to include a drone or other system that uses AI technology. (N.D. Cent. Code § 12.1-17-07.(1), (2)(f)). This appears to be a “state AI law.” North Dakota statutes also prohibit stalking accomplished by using either a robot or a non-AI form of technology. (N.D. Cent. Code § 12.1-17-07.1(1)(d)). Preempting this statute would produce an anomalous result. It would be a crime to stalk somebody unless you use an AI-powered device to do it.

Political Deepfakes

Several states have enacted laws prohibiting the distribution of political deepfakes to influence an election. Regulations range from a prohibition against the distribution of a deepfake to influence an election within a specified time period before the election to requiring disclosure that it is AI-generated. Minn. Stat. § 609.771 is an example of such a regulation. The need for this kind of statute was highlighted in 2024 when someone used AI to clone Joe Biden’s voice and generate an audio file that sounded like Mr. Biden himself was urging people not to vote for him.

Sexual Deepfakes

Both state and federal governments have enacted laws aimed at curbing the proliferation of “revenge porn.” The TAKE IT DOWN Act is an example. Minn. Stat. § 604.32 is another example (deepfakes depicting intimate body parts or sexual acts).

State and federal laws in this area cover much of the same ground. The principal difference is that the federal crime must involve interstate commerce; state crimes do not. The only practical effect of preemption of this kind of state AI law, therefore, would be to eliminate state prohibitions of wholly intrastate sexual deepfakes. If the Executive Order succeeds in its objectives, then state laws that prohibit the creation or distribution of sexual deepfakes wholly within the same state, as some do, would be preempted, with the result that making and distributing sexual deepfakes would be lawful so long as you only transmit it to other people in your state and not to someone in a different state.

Digital Replicas

Many states have enacted laws prohibiting or regulating the unauthorized creation and exploitation of digital replicas. The California Digital Replicas Act and Tennessee’s ELVIS Act are examples. AI is used in the creation of digital replicas. It is unclear whether these kinds of enactments are “state AI laws.” Arguably, a person could use technologies more primitive than generative-AI to create a digital image of a person. If these statutes are preempted only to the extent they apply to AI-generated digital replicas, then it would seem that unauthorized exploiters of other people’s faces and voices for commercial gain would be incentivized to use AI to engage in unauthorized commerceial exploitation of other people.

Child Pornography

Several states have either enacted laws or amended existing laws to bring AI-generated images of what look like real children within the prohibition against child pornography. See, e.g., N.D. Cent. Code § 12.1.-27.2—01.  The Executive Order exempts “child safety protections,” but real children do not necessarily have to be used in AI-generated images. This kind of state statute arguably would not come within the meaning of a “child safety protection.”

Health Care Oversight

California’s Physicians Make Decisions Act requires a human person to oversee health care decisions about medical necessity. This is to ensure that medical care is not left entirely up to an AI bot. The law was enacted with the support of the California Medical Association to ensure that patients receive adequate health care. If the law is nullified, then it would seem that hospitals would be free to replace doctors with AI chatbots.

Chatbots

Some states prohibit the deceptive use of a chatbot, such as by falsely representing to people who interact with one that they are interacting with a real person. In addition, some states have enacted laws requiring disclosure to consumers when they are interacting with a non-human AI. See, e.g., the Colorado Artificial Intelligence Act.

Privacy

Some states have enacted either stand-alone laws or amended existing privacy laws to ensure they protect the privacy of personally identifiable information stored by AI systems. See, e.g., Utah Code 13-721-201, -203 (regulating the sharing of a person’s mental health information by a chatbot); and amendments to the California Consumer Privacy Act making it applicable to information stored in an AI system.

Disclosure

California’s Generative AI Training Data Transparency Act requires disclosure of training data used in developing generative-AI technology.

The Texas Responsible Artificial Intelligence Governance Act

Among other things, the Texas Responsible AI Governance Act prohibits the use of AI to restrict constitutional rights, to discriminate on the basis of race, or to encourage criminal activity. These seem like reasonable proscriptions.

Trump’s “AI czar,” venture capitalist David Sacks, has said the administration is not gong to “push back” on all state laws, only “the most onerous” ones. It is unclear which of these will be deemed “onerous.”

State AI Laws are Not Preempted

News media headlines are trumpeting that the Executive Order preempts state AI laws. This is not true. It directs this administration to try to strike down some state AI laws. It contemplates working with Congress to formulate and enact preemptive legislation. It is doubtful that a President could constitutionally preempt state laws by executive order.

Postscript

Striving for uniformity in the regulation of artificial intelligence is not a bad idea. There should be room, though, for both federal and state legislation. Rather than abolishing state laws, a uniform code or model act for states might be a better idea. Moreover, if we are going to start caring about an onerous complex of differing state laws, and feeling a need to establish a national framework, perhaps the President and Congress might wish to address the sprawling morass of privacy and data security regulations in the United States.

 

AI Lawsuits Roundup

A status update on 24 pending lawsuits against AI companies – what they’re about and what is happening in court – prepared by Minnesota copyright attorney Thomas James.

Advancements in artificial intelligence technology, including generative-AI, have introduced a wide range of new or exacerbated legal problems. Collectively, I call these AI legal issues. Although not all of them are unique to scenarios involving AI, they are certainly testing and stretching the capacity of legal institutions. Here is a very brief summary of how these issues are playing out in the courts, as of February 28, 2024. 

Copyright

Thaler v. Perlmutter (D.D.C. 2022).

Complaint filed June 2, 2022. Thaler created an AI system called the Creativity Machine. He applied to register copyrights in the output he generated with it. The Copyright Office refused registration on the ground that AI output does not meet the “human authorship” requirement. (I explained that requirement in a previous blog post that explored the difference between human and AI creation of a work. He then sought judicial review. The district court granted summary judgment for the Copyright Office. (See A Recent Exit from Paradise.) In October, 2023, Thaler filed an appeal to the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals (Case no. 23-5233).

Doe v. GitHub, Microsoft, and OpenAI (N.D. Cal. 2022)

I wrote about this case in Generative AI: The Top 12 Lawsuits.  The complaint was filed November 3, 2022. Software developers claim the defendants trained Codex and Copilot on code derived from theirs, which they published on GitHub. Some claims have been dismissed, but claims that GitHub and OpenAI violated the DMCA and breached open source licenses remain. Discovery is ongoing.

Andersen v. Stability AI (N.D. Cal. 2023)

The Andersen v. Stability AI complaint was filed January 13, 1023. Visual artists sued Midjourney, Stability AI and DeviantArt for copyright infringement for allegedly training their generative-AI models on images scraped from the Internet without copyright holders’ permission. Other claims included DMCA violations, publicity rights violations, unfair competition, breach of contract, and a claim that output images are infringing derivative works. On October 30, 2023, the court largely granted motions to dismiss, but granted leave to amend the complaint. Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint on November 29, 2023. Defendants have filed motions to dismiss the amended complaint. Hearing on the motion is set for May 8, 2024.

Getty Images v. StabilityAI (U.K. 2023)

Complaint filed January, 2023. Getty Images claims StabilityAI scraped images without its consent. The Getty Images lawsuit has survived a motion to dismiss. The case appears to be heading to trial.

In re OpenAI ChatGPT Litigation (N.D. Cal. 2023)

Complaint filed June 28, 3023. Originally captioned Tremblay v. OpenAI. Book authors sued OpenAI for direct and vicarious copyright infringement, DMCA violations, unfair competition and negligence. Both input (training) and output (derivative works) claims are alleged, as well as state law claims of unfair competition, etc. Most state law and DMCA claims have been dismissed, but claims based on unauthorized copying during the AI training process remain. An amended complaint is likely to come in March. The court has directed the amended complaint to consolidate Tremblay v. OpenAI, Chabon v. OpenAI, and Silverman v. OpenAI.  

Kadrey v. Meta (N.D. Cal. 2023)

Complaint filed July 7, 2023. Sarah Silverman and other authors allege Meta infringed copyrights in their works by making copies of them while training Meta’s AI model; that the AI model is itself an infringing derivative work; and that outputs are infringing copies of their works. Plaintiffs also allege DMCA violations, unfair competition, unjust enrichment, and negligence. The court granted Meta’s motion to dismiss all claims except the claim that unauthorized copies were made during the AI training process. An amended complaint and answer have been filed.

In 2025, Judge Chhabria ruled in Meta’s favor on fair use with respect to AI training; reserved the motion for summary judgment on the DMCA claims for decision in a separate order, and held that the claim of infringing distribution via leeching or seeding “will remain a live issue in the case.” Kadrey v. Meta Platforms. 

J.L. v. Google (N.D. Cal. 2023)

Complaint filed July 11, 2023. In another case I mentioned in Generative AI: The Top 12 Lawsuits, an author filed a complaint against Google alleging misuse of content posted on social media and Google platforms to train Google’s AI Bard. (Gemini is the successor to Google’s Bard.) Claims include copyright infringement, DMCA violations, and others. J.L. filed an amended complaint and Google has filed a motion to dismiss it. A hearing is scheduled for May 16, 2024.

Chabon v. OpenAI (N.D. Cal. 2023)

Complaint filed September 9, 2023. Authors allege that OpenAI infringed copyrights while training ChatGPT, and that ChatGPT is itself an unauthorized derivative work. They also assert claims of DMCA violations, unfair competition, negligence and unjust enrichment. Chabon v. OpenAI has been consolidated with Tremblay v. OpenAI, and the cases are now captioned In re OpenAI ChatGPT Litigation.

Chabon v. Meta Platforms (N.D. Cal. 2023)

Complaint filed September 12, 2023. Authors assert copyright infringement claims against Meta, alleging that Meta trained its AI using their works and that the AI model itself is an unauthorized derivative work. The authors also assert claims for DMCA violations, unfair competition, negligence, and unjust enrichment. In November, 2023, the court issued an Order dismissing all claims except the claim of unauthorized copying in the course of training the AI. The court described the claim that an AI model trained on a work is a derivative of that work as “nonsensical.” Chabon v. Mea Platforms. 

Authors Guild v. OpenAI, Microsoft, et al. (S.D.N.Y. 2023)

Complaint filed September 19, 1023. Book and fiction writers filed a complaint for copyright infringement in connection with defendants’ training AI on copies of their works without permission. A motion to dismiss has been filed. Authors Guild v. Open AI et al. 

Huckabee v. Bloomberg, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and EleutherAI Institute (S.D.N.Y. 2023)

Complaint filed October 17, 2023. Political figure Mike Huckabee and others allege that the defendants trained AI tools on their works without permission when they used Books3, a text dataset compiled by developers; that their tools are themselves unauthorized derivative works; and that every output of their tools is an infringing derivative work.  Claims against EleutherAI have been voluntarily dismissed. Claims against Meta and Microsoft have been transferred to the Northern District of California. Bloomberg is expected to file a motion to dismiss soon. Huckabee v. Bloomberg et al.

Huckabee v. Meta Platforms and Microsoft (N.D. Cal. 2023)

Complaint filed October 17, 2023. Political figure Mike Huckabee and others allege that the defendants trained AI tools on their works without permission when they used Books3, a text dataset compiled by developers; that their tools are themselves unauthorized derivative works; and that every output of their tools is an infringing derivative work. Plaintiffs have filed an amended complaint. Plaintiffs have stipulated to dismissal of claims against Microsoft without prejudice. Huckabee v. Meta Platforms and Microsoft.

Concord Music Group v. Anthropic (M.D. Tenn. 2023)

Complaint filed October 18, 2023. Music publishers claim that Anthropic infringed publisher-owned copyrights in song lyrics when they allegedly were copied as part of an AI training process (Claude) and when lyrics were reproduced and distributed in response to prompts. They have also made claims of contributory and vicarious infringement. Motions to dismiss and for a preliminary injunction are pending. Concord Music Group v. Anthropic.

Alter v. OpenAI and Microsoft (S.D.N.Y. 2023)

Complaint filed November 21, 2023. Nonfiction author alleges claims of copyright infringement and contributory copyright infringement against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that reproducing copies of their works in datasets used to train AI infringed copyrights. The court has ordered consolidation of Author’s Guild (23-cv-8292) and Alter (23-cv-10211). On February 12,2024, plaintiffs in other cases filed a motion to intervene and dismiss. Alter v. OpenAI and Microsoft.

New York Times v. Microsoft and OpenAI (S.D.N.Y. 2023)

Complaint filed December 27, 2023. The New York Times alleges that their news stories were used to train AI without a license or permission, in violation of their exclusive rights of reproduction and public display, as copyright owners. The complaint also alleges vicarious and contributory copyright infringement, DMCA violations, unfair competition, and trademark dilution. The Times seeks damages, an injunction against further infringing conduct, and a Section 503(b) order for the destruction of “all GPT or other LLM models and training sets that incorporate Times Works.” On February 23, 2024, plaintiffs in other cases filed a motion to intervene and dismiss this case. New York Times v. Microsoft and OpenAI.

Basbanes and Ngagoyeanes v. Microsoft and OpenAI (S.D.N.Y. 2024)

Complaint filed January 5, 2024. Nonfiction authors assert copyright claims against Microsoft and OpenAI. On February 6, 2024, the court consolidated this case with Authors Guild (23-cv-08292) and Alter v. Open AI (23-cv-10211), for pretrial purposes. Basbanes and Ngagoyeanes v. Microsoft and OpenAI.

Trademark

Getty Images v. Stability AI (D. Del.)

Getty Images v. Stability AI Complaint filed on February 3, 2023. Getty Images alleges claims of copyright infringement, DMCA violation and trademark violations against Stability AI. The judge has dismissed without prejudice a motion to dismiss or transfer on jurisdictional grounds. The motion may be re-filed after the conclusion of jurisdictional discovery, which is ongoing.

Privacy and Publicity Rights

Flora v. Prisma Labs (N.D. Cal.)

Complaint filed February 15, 2023. Plaintiffs allege violations of the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act in connection with Prisma Labs’ collection and retention of users’ selfies in AI training. The court has granted Prisma’s motion to compel arbitration. Flora v. Prisma Labs. 

Kyland Young v. NeoCortext (C.D. Cal. 2023)

Complaint filed April 3, 2023. This complaint alleges that AI tool Reface used a person’s image without consent, in violation of the person’s publicity rights under California law. The court has denied a motion to dismiss, ruling that publicity rights claims are not preempted by federal copyright law. The case has been stayed pending appeal. Kyland Young v. NeoCortext.

Complaint filed June 28, 2023. Users claim OpenAI violated the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act and California wiretapping laws by collecting their data when they input content into ChatGPT. They also claim violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the case on September 15, 2023. See now A.T. v. OpenAI (N.D. Cal. 2023) (below). P.M. v. OpenAI.

A.T. v. OpenAI (N.D. Cal. 2023)

Complaint filed September 5, 2023. ChatGPT users claim the company violated the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and California Penal Code section 631 (wiretapping). The gravamen of the complaint is that ChatGPT allegedly accessed users’ platform access and intercepted their private information without their knowledge or consent. Motions to dismiss and to compel arbitration are pending. A.T. v. OpenAI.

Defamation

Walters v. OpenAI (Gwinnett County Super. Ct. 2023), and Walters v. OpenAI (N.D. Ga. 2023)

Gwinnett County complaint filed June 5, 2023.

Federal district court complaint filed July 14, 2023.

Radio Radio talk show host sued OpenAI for defamation. A reporter had used ChatGPT to get information about him. ChatGPT wrongly described him as a person who had been accused of fraud. In October, 2023, the federal court remanded the case to the Superior Court of Gwinnett County, Georgia.  On January 11, 2024, the Gwinnett County Superior Court denied OpenAI’s motion to dismiss. Walters v. OpenAI. 

Battle v. Microsoft (D. Md. 2023)

Complaint filed July 7, 2023. Pro se defamation complaint against Microsoft alleging that Bing falsely described him as a member of the “Portland Seven,” a group of Americans who tried to join the Taliban after 9/11. Battle v. Microsoft.

Caveat

This list is not exhaustive. There may be other cases involving AI that are not included here. For a discussion of bias issues in Google’s Gemini, have a look at Scraping Bias.

Visit my extensive Copyright FAQs page.

Exit mobile version
%%footer%%