A judge in the Southern District of New York denied OpenAI’s motion to dismiss a consolidated class action suit over ChatGPT. The suit combines lawsuits from authors including Michael Chabon, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Sarah Silverman, Kai Bird, and Victor LaValle, as well as the Authors Guild, alleging that ChatGPT’s outputs are similar to the authors’ work and constitute copyright infringement. Judge Sidney H. Stein determined that the plaintiffs’ argument is strong enough to go to trial. In trying to dismiss, OpenAI argued that ChatGPT summarizing books is the same as summarizing news articles, which “the court determined were not substantially similar to […]
Legal
Administration Asks Supreme Court to Stay Reinstatement of Copyright Register Perlmutter
Copyright Office director Shira Perlmutter was temporarily reinstated to her position last month upon the order of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals — and now the Solicitor General has asked the Supreme Court for a stay of that ruling. The case hinges on whether the office is part of the executive branch or the legislative branch of the Federal government. The administration argues that the Court of Appeals overlooked “clear circuit precedent holding that the Librarian [of Congress] and Register are executive officers,” while “providing no plausible justification for its startling about-face.” The government argues that despite the name […]
Simon & Schuster Sues Nelson DeMille Estate
Simon & Schuster is suing the estate of mystery writer Nelson DeMille for $1.275 million in New York Surrogate Court over a novel he never finished. S&S contends in their Nassau County filing that the DeMille estate owes the publisher a $635,000 advance paid on the acceptance and delivery of an outline for his third book, EXPLORERS CLUB, which he had not completed when he died in 2024. They also seek one third of the initial signing advance of $1.92 million paid to DeMille when he signed a $15.3 million three-book deal in 2014. DeMille’s children, Alex DeMille and Lauren […]
Michael Mocks “MAGA Myrmidons” In Melania Lawsuit
The full filing of journalist and author Michael Wolff’s lawsuit against first lady Melania Trump is now available. He seeks declaratory judgement that statements Mrs. Trump threatened to sue him over — seeking $1 billion — “are not actionable libel claims,” and asks for compensatory and punitive damages if she continues to threaten him “for the purpose of harassing, intimidating, punishing, or otherwise maliciously inhibiting Mr. Wolff’s free exercise of speech.” In Wolff’s full complaint, it alleges: “Mrs. Trump and her ‘unitary executive’ husband along with their MAGA myrmidons have made a practice of threatening those who speak against them […]
Michael Wolff Sues Melania Trump
The New York Daily News reports that Michael Wolff is suing Melania Trump in New York Supreme Court over her attempt to block publication of his book detailing her connection to Jeffrey Epstein, THE ART OF HER DEAL: The Untold Story of Melania Trump (Redux). (Wolff’s title evokes the 2020 biography of Melania Trump written by Mary Jordan.) The News writes that in the filing, Wolff “accuses Melania Trump of launching a campaign of threats to intimidate him from digging deeper into the first couple’s friendship with Epstein.” Wolff says that she threatened to sue him for $1 billion if […]
Judge Again Rules Against TX READER Law
Judge Alan D. Albright of the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division again ruled that Texas’s “READER Act,” which would require booksellers to rate every book they sell to public school libraries based on vague notions of “sexually explicit material,” is unconstitutional. He issued a permanent injunction against the law. Albright, who made the same ruling in 2023 before the case was appealed, agreed with plaintiffs Blue Willow Bookshop, BookPeople, the ABA, AAP, Authors Guild, and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, that “READER can and does violate the First Amendment in several ways.” Albright […]