Here, we provide case summaries and links to delve further into court cases shaping the landscape of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and intellectual property in the United States.
Major U.S. AI IP Cases
Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Copyright-Related
J.L. v. Alphabet Inc., 3:23-cv-03440, (N.D. Cal.), filed on July 11, 2023. In a class action lawsuit against Alphabet’s Google, it was accused of training its AI system from scraped personal data and copyright protected works. In the complaint, they allege unfair competition, negligence, invasion of privacy, intrusion upon seclusion, larceny/receipt of stolen property, conversion, and unjust enrichment.
Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Inc., 3:23-cv-03417 (N.D. Cal.), filed on July 7, 2023. Class action lawsuit in connection with the company’s training material for its large language model (LLaMA). The claims in the complaint are direct copyright infringement, vicarious copyright infringement, removal of copyright-management information and false assertion of copyright, unfair competition unjust enrichment, and negligence.
Silverman v. OpenAI, Inc., 4:23-cv-03416 (N.D. Cal.), filed on July 7, 2023. A handful of authors filed a class action lawsuit against OpenAI for allegedly training it’s AI models on their copyrighted books and that the product produced is substantially similar to their protected works. The claims include direct copyright infringement, vicarious copyright infringement, removal of copyright management information, unfair competition, negligence, and unjust enrichment.
Tremblay v. OPENAI, INC., 3:23-cv-03223, (N.D. Cal.), filed on June 28, 2023. Two authors filed a class action lawsuit against OpenAI alleging OpenAi used their copyright protected material for training and the output constitutes infringing derivative works. The claims include direct copyright infringement, vicarious copyright infringement, removal of copyright management information, unfair competition, negligence, and unjust enrichment.
Andersen v. Stability AI Ltd., 3:23-cv-00201 (N.D. Cal.), filed on January 13, 2023. Artists filed a class action lawsuit against Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt claiming that they scraped images from the internet to train their AI models and by using their work without permission, infringed their copyrights. The claims include direct copyright Infringement, vicarious copyright infringement, DMCA violations, right of publicity violations, and unlawful-competition.
Thaler v. Perlmutter, 1:22-cv-01564 (D.D.C.), filed June 2, 2022. AI scientist Stephen Thaler attempted to register digital art created by an AI system that he created. He argued that the AI machine was the author and original copyright owner of the work but the ownership transferred to him under the work-for-hire doctrine. The Copyright Office denied registration because of the lack of human authorship. A U.S. District Court judge affirmed the Copyright Offices ruling and granted the motion of summary judgement.