OpenAI Must Turn Over 20 Million ChatGPT Logs, Judge Affirms; Bloomberg Law, January 5, 2026

 

Kyle Jahner

, Bloomberg Law; OpenAI Must Turn Over 20 Million ChatGPT Logs, Judge Affirms

"OpenAI Inc. will have to turn over 20 million anonymized ChatGPT logs in a consolidated AI copyright case after it failed to convince a federal judge to throw out a magistrate judge’s order the company said insufficiently weighed privacy concerns.

Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang sufficiently considered privacy concerns against the material’s relevance to the ongoing litigation in her discovery ruling in favor of news organization plaintiffs in five lawsuits, District Judge Sidney H. Stein said in an order Monday. She rejected OpenAI’s arguments it should be allowed to run a search of the 20 million-log sample and produce conversations implicating the plaintiffs’ works, saying no case law requires the court to order the least burdensome discovery possible."

AI copyright battles enter pivotal year as US courts weigh fair use; Reuters, January 5, 2026

Blake Brittain , Reuters; AI copyright battles enter pivotal year as US courts weigh fair use

"The sprawling legal fight over tech companies' vast copying of copyrighted material to train their artificial intelligence systems could be entering a decisive phase in 2026.

After a string of fresh lawsuits and a landmark settlement in 2025, the new year promises to bring a wave of rulings that could define how U.S. copyright law applies to generative AI. At stake is whether companies like OpenAI, Google and Meta can rely on the legal doctrine of fair use to shield themselves from liability – or if they must reimburse copyright holders, which could cost billions."

AI Will Continue to Dominate California IP Litigation in 2026; Bloomberg Law, December 26, 2025

Annelise Levy

, Bloomberg Law; AI Will Continue to Dominate California IP Litigation in 2026

"Lawsuits against AI giants OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity are set to continue headlining intellectual property developments in California federal courts in 2026.

In the coming months, we’ll see decisions in two key cases: whether Anthropic PBC’s historic $1.5 billion copyright settlement with authors will receive final approval and if music publishers’ separate copyright lawsuit against the artificial intelligence company will head to trial in September.

Here’s a closer look at the California legal battles that could redefine the landscape of IP law next year."

OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI Hit With Copyright Suit from Writers; Bloomberg Law, December 22, 2025

Annelise Levy, Bloomberg Law; OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI Hit With Copyright Suit from Writers

"Writers including Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Carreyrou filed a copyright lawsuit accusing six AI giants of using pirated copies of their books to train large language models.

The complaint, filed Monday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, claims Anthropic PBC, Google LLC, OpenAI Inc., Meta Platforms Inc., xAI Corp., and Perplexity AI Inc. committed a “deliberate act of theft.”

It is the first copyright lawsuit against xAI over its training process, and the first suit brought by authors against Perplexity...

Carreyrou is among the authors who opted out of a $1.5 billion class-action settlement with Anthropic."

Authors Ask to Update Meta AI Copyright Suit With Torrent Claim; Bloomberg Law, December 12, 2025

 

Kyle Jahner

, Bloomberg Law; Authors Ask to Update Meta AI Copyright Suit With Torrent Claim

"Authors in a putative class action copyright suit against Meta Platforms Inc. asked a federal judge for permission to amend their complaint to add a claim over Meta’s use of peer-to-peer file-sharing unveiled in discovery."

Disney says Google AI infringes copyright “on a massive scale”; Ars Technica, December 11, 2025

 RYAN WHITWAM , Ars Technica; Disney says Google AI infringes copyright “on a massive scale”

"Disney has sent a cease and desist to Google, alleging the company’s AI tools are infringing Disney’s copyrights “on a massive scale.”

According to the letter, Google is violating the entertainment conglomerate’s intellectual property in multiple ways. The legal notice says Google has copied a “large corpus” of Disney’s works to train its gen AI models, which is believable, as Google’s image and video models will happily produce popular Disney characters—they couldn’t do that without feeding the models lots of Disney data.

The C&D also takes issue with Google for distributing “copies of its protected works” to consumers."

Has Cambridge-based AI music upstart Suno 'gone legit'?; WBUR, December 11, 2025

 

Tiziana Dearing 

Rob Lane

, WBUR; Has Cambridge-based AI music upstart Suno 'gone legit'?

"The Cambridge-based AI music company Suno, which has been besieged by lawsuits from record labels, is now teaming up with behemoth label Warner Music. Under a new partnership, Warner will license music in its catalogue for use by Suno's AI.

Copyright law experts Peter Karol and Bhamati Viswanathan join WBUR's Morning Edition to discuss what the deal between Suno and Warner Music means for the future of intellectual property."

AI firms began to feel the legal wrath of copyright holders in 2025; NewScientist, December 10, 2025

 Chris Stokel-Walker , NewScientist; AI firms began to feel the legal wrath of copyright holders in 2025

"The three years since the release of ChatGPT, OpenAI’s generative AI chatbot, have seen huge changes in every part of our lives. But one area that hasn’t changed – or at least, is still trying to maintain pre-AI norms – is the upholding of copyright law.

It is no secret that leading AI firms built their models by hoovering up data, including copyrighted material, from the internet without asking for permission first. This year, major copyright holders struck back, buffeting AI companies were with a range of lawsuits alleging copyright infringement."

The New York Times is suing Perplexity for copyright infringement; TechCrunch, December 5, 2025

 Rebecca Bellan , TechCrunch; The New York Times is suing Perplexity for copyright infringement

"The New York Times filed suit Friday against AI search startup Perplexity for copyright infringement, its second lawsuit against an AI company. The Times joins several media outlets suing Perplexity, including the Chicago Tribune, which also filed suit this week."

OpenAI loses fight to keep ChatGPT logs secret in copyright case; Reuters, December 3, 2025

 Blake Brittain, Reuters ; OpenAI loses fight to keep ChatGPT logs secret in copyright case

"OpenAI must produce millions of anonymized chat logs from ChatGPT users in its high-stakes copyright dispute with the New York Times and other news outlets, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Ona Wang in a decision made public on Wednesday said that the 20 million logs were relevant to the outlets' claims and that handing them over would not risk violating users' privacy."

Lawsuit or License?; Columbia Journalism Review, December 4, 2025

 KLAUDIA JAŹWIŃSKA, Columbia Journalism Review; Lawsuit or License?

"Today, the Tow Center for Digital Journalism is releasing a tracker that monitors developments between news publishers and AI companies—including lawsuits, deals, and grants—based on publicly available information."

OpenAI’s Privacy Bet in Copyright Suit Puts Chatbots on Alert; Bloomberg Law, November 18, 2025

Cassandre Coyer

, Aruni Soni, Bloomberg Law; OpenAI’s Privacy Bet in Copyright Suit Puts Chatbots on Alert

"OpenAI Inc. is banking on a privacy argument to block a court’s probe into millions of ChatGPT user conversations. 

That hasn’t worked so far as a winning legal strategy that can be used by other chatbot makers anticipating similar discovery demands in exploding chatbot-related litigation.

Instead, it threatens to turn attention to just how much information chatbots like ChatGPT are collecting and retaining about their users."

Getty Images v. Stability AI- Intellectual Property Rights in the Age of Generative AI; The National Law Journal, November 14, 2025

 Nathan Smith, Anita Hodea Katten   , The National Law Journal; Getty Images v. Stability AI- Intellectual Property Rights in the Age of Generative AI

"Key Takeaways

• Getty succeeded only in part, and narrowly, on its trade mark infringement claims. Findings were confined to specific examples of outputs from early versions of the Model involving "iStock" and "Getty Images" watermarks.
• Getty's secondary copyright infringement claim failed. The court held that the Model’s weights were not an "infringing copy" of Getty's works because the Model did not at any time contain or store a copy of the underlying Getty images.
• The judgment leaves critical questions unanswered relating to the relationship between IP rights and generative AI, particularly whether the use of copyright protected works to train AI models constitutes copyright infringement. It was hoped that these issues would be addressed by the court, but this element of the claim was withdrawn during trial.
• Looking ahead, the UK government's ongoing work with expert groups from both the creative and technology sectors will be closely watched, as it seeks to balance the protection of human creativity with technological innovation."

OpenAI used song lyrics in violation of copyright laws, German court says; Reuters, November 11, 2025

Jörn Poltz and Friederike Heine, Reuters ; OpenAI used song lyrics in violation of copyright laws, German court says

"OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT violated German copyright laws by reproducing lyrics from songs by best-selling musician Herbert Groenemeyer and others, a court ruled on Tuesday, in a closely watched case against the U.S. firm over its use of lyrics to train its language models.

The regional court in Munich found that the company trained its AI on protected content from nine German songs, including Groenemeyer's hits "Maenner" and "Bochum"."

AI firm wins high court ruling after photo agency’s copyright claim; The Guardian, November 4, 2025

 Robert Booth , The Guardian; AI firm wins high court ruling after photo agency’s copyright claim

"A London-based artificial intelligence firm has won a landmark high court case examining the legality of AI models using vast troves of copyrighted data without permission.

Stability AI, whose directors include the Oscar-winning film-maker behind Avatar, James Cameron, successfully resisted a claim from Getty Images that it had infringed the international photo agency’s copyright.

The ruling is seen as a blow to copyright owners’ exclusive right to reap the rewards of their work, with one senior lawyer, Rebecca Newman, a legal director at Addleshaw Goddard, warning it means “the UK’s secondary copyright regime is not strong enough to protect its creators”."

Photographer sues Rice after Coffeehouse uses copyrighted muffin photo; Rice Thresher, October 28, 2025

Noah Berz , Rice Thresher; Photographer sues Rice after Coffeehouse uses copyrighted muffin photo

[Kip Currier: Another cautionary tale to not "scrape" stuff from the Internet and use it for one's commercial business.

(Oh, wait...that's what Big Tech did with billions of copyrighted works they "scraped" from the Web and pirate book libraries to develop their proprietary IP-protected AI products, too, right?)

At any rate, this "federal copyright-registered blueberry muffin photo" story is another reminder that it'll save you money, time, and possible reputational damage to do one of the following: take your own photo of a blueberry muffin; hire someone to do it; license a photo; or ask permission to use it.

And if you do use a photo for your business venture, give the photographer/copyright creator attribution...

Like this photo I took of my mother's delicious Iron Skillet Blueberry Scones!

[Excerpt]

"A lawsuit has been filed against Rice, accusing Rice Coffeehouse of using a copyrighted photograph without permission to advertise on their Instagram page and website. 

The Oct. 17 complaint was filed on behalf of Meggan Hill, a photographer and chef who posts her recipes online. The photo in question is a blueberry muffin photo, featured on Hill’s website with an accompanying recipe.

The lawsuit was filed in a Houston federal district court by Hill’s attorney, Layla Nguyen of SRipLaw, an intellectual property law firm based in Boca Raton, Florida. According to the case briefing, Hill tried to notify the university of her allegations twice before suing but received no response. 

“To date, the parties have failed to resolve this matter,” the briefing reads. “Rice failed to respond to any communications.”

The lawsuit alleges that Chaus copied Hill’s photograph titled “Blueberry Muffins - Culinary Hill 1200x800” from the internet and displayed it online to promote the addition of blueberry muffins to their menu. 

In the lawsuit, Hill claims she discovered the photograph on the Chaus website on Jan. 7 — over a year after she registered the image with the Register of Copyrights. Hill allegedly reached out to Rice with her complaint on Jan. 29 and Feb. 28 before filing the suit."

ChatGPT came up with a 'Game of Thrones' sequel idea. Now, a judge is letting George RR Martin sue for copyright infringement.; Business Insider, October 28, 2025

 Jacob Shamsian, Business Insider; ChatGPT came up with a 'Game of Thrones' sequel idea. Now, a judge is letting George RR Martin sue for copyright infringement.

"When a federal judge decided to allow a sprawling class-action lawsuit against OpenAI to move forward, he read some "Game of Thrones" fan fiction.

In a court ruling Monday, US District Judge Sidney Stein said a ChatGPT-generated idea for a book in the still-unfinished "A Song of Ice and Fire" series by George R.R. Martin could have violated the author's copyright.

"A reasonable jury could find that the allegedly infringing outputs are substantially similar to plaintiffs' works," the judge said in the 18-page Manhattan federal court ruling."

OpenAI loses bid to dismiss part of US authors' copyright lawsuit; Reuters, October 28, 2025

Blake Brittain, Reuters; OpenAI loses bid to dismiss part of US authors' copyright lawsuit

"A New York federal judge has denied OpenAI's early request to dismiss authors' claims that text generated by OpenAI's artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT infringes their copyrights.

U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein said on Monday that the authors may be able to prove the text ChatGPT produces is similar enough to their work to violate their book copyrights."

Reddit sues AI company Perplexity and others for ‘industrial-scale’ scraping of user comments; AP, October 22, 2025

 MATT O’BRIEN, AP; Reddit sues AI company Perplexity and others for ‘industrial-scale’ scraping of user comments

"Social media platform Reddit sued the artificial intelligence company Perplexity AI and three other entities on Wednesday, alleging their involvement in an “industrial-scale, unlawful” economy to “scrape” the comments of millions of Reddit users for commercial gain.

Reddit’s lawsuit in a New York federal court takes aim at San Francisco-based Perplexity, maker of an AI chatbot and “answer engine” that competes with Google, ChatGPT and others in online search. 

Also named in the lawsuit are Lithuanian data-scraping company Oxylabs UAB, a web domain called AWMProxy that Reddit describes as a “former Russian botnet,” and Texas-based startup SerpApi, which lists Perplexity as a customer on its website.

It’s the second such lawsuit from Reddit since it sued another major AI company, Anthropic, in June.

But the lawsuit filed Wednesday is different in the way that it confronts not just an AI company but the lesser-known services the AI industry relies on to acquire online writings needed to train AI chatbots."

Is ‘The Pitt’ Really an ‘ER’ Spinoff? Michael Crichton’s Estate Says It Is.; The New York Times, September 12, 2025

 Nicholas Kulish, The New York Times ; Is ‘The Pitt’ Really an ‘ER’ Spinoff? Michael Crichton’s Estate Says It Is.

The estate of the best-selling author, which has intellectual property rights to “ER,” and the creators of the new hit TV show are waging a legal battle over whether it’s a stealth reboot.

"On Nov. 4, the defendants asked the court to dismiss the complaint, citing their constitutional free speech rights and arguing that “The Pitt” is not a derivative work of “ER.” They emphasized that the new series is about the post-Covid world, reminding the judge that it deals with events that arose after Mr. Crichton’s death...

Rewatching “ER” through the lens of the lawsuit — as a jury might be asked to — can be a strange experience. Is the struggle over whether to put a dying elderly patient onto a ventilator a distinct plot point (this would support Team Crichton) or an everyday tragedy in a large urban hospital (Team Pitt)?

“‘The Pitt’ has no connection to ‘ER’ — it does not use ‘ER’’s intellectual property, characters, plot, setting or narrative pacing,” the defendants said. “While both series are medical dramas set in a hospital, this concept is hardly unique.” They name-checked “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Chicago Med,” “House” and “The Good Doctor.”...

The case “could serve as a model for how to figure out how much things are worth in the streaming space,” said Jennifer Porst, a professor of media industry studies at Emory University in Atlanta."