Last week, a US district court denied former Meta executive Sarah Wynn-Williams’ motions for a preliminary injunction that would allow her to promote her whistleblower account of working at Facebook, Careless People. Just after the book’s publication in March 2025, an arbitrator ruled that any publicity or appearances related to the book would violate the non-disclosure agreement she signed along with her severance agreement from Facebook in 2017. Wynn-Williams filed a lawsuit in June to overturn the gag order and asked to halt arbitration and vacate the order that keeps her from promoting the book. The Court says that Wynn-Williams […]
Legal
Authors, OpenAI File for Summary Judgement In New York Infringement Case
All of the parties in the consolidated AI copyright infringement cases against OpenAI and Microsoft in New York’s Southern District filed motions for summary judgement. There is one set for the books plaintiffs (covered here) and another set for the news plaintiffs (led by the New York Times, not covered here). The books suit is led by the Authors Guild and named plaintiffs including David Baldacci, John Grisham, Elin Hilderbrand, Christina Baker Kline, George R.R. Martin and Jodi Picoult, first brought in late 2023. The plaintiffs declare that, “OpenAI’s GPT models pose an existential threat to those who write and […]
Widespread Problems as Authors Receive Anthropic Settlement Notices
Authors and publishers who filed claims in the Anthropic lawsuit should receive a first payment between November 1 and November 15, according to a status report filed with the court by class counsel. That schedule applies only to “works where all rightsholders are in agreement and where all necessary payment information is provided.” The first payment should be approximately $2,203.56 per title in gross proceeds, “after deduction of fees, services awards, and expenses.” Anthropic has deposited $1.05 billion so far into an escrow account, which has earned nearly $25 million in interest. The company will deposit another $450 million plus […]
Trump Administration Files Statement in Support of OpenAI in Copyright Suits
The Department of Justice took the highly unusual step of filing a “statement of interest” in support of OpenAI and Microsoft in the copyright infringement lawsuit brought by the New York Times. (Though they also declare in a footnote, “The United States’ legal arguments apply similarly to all parties in this litigation and the related cases, including book authors and publishers.”) It’s a policy position presented in the language of a legal paper. Their official position, flowing from Dear Leader’s executive order on “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,” is that the development of LLMs is super-duper transformative, […]
Attorneys In Anthropic Settlement File Appeal Over Fee-Sharing
Just before the August 19 deadline for any appeals of the final settlement in the Anthropic copyright infringement case, Edelson and Oppenheim + Zebrak, the two firms brought in by publishers as “Publishers’ Coordination Counsel,” filed a notice of appeal to the Ninth Circuit’s Court of Appeals. The firms say they “intend to focus their appeal on issues related to the Order Granting in Part Motion for Attorneys’ Fees, Reimbursement of Expenses,” but the notice is phrased as an appeal of “the Judgment entered on July 20, 2026, including all prior orders encompassed in that decision.” That leaves opaque for […]
Shareholder Sues Nvidia For Damaging the Company With Improper AI Training
A lawsuit has been filed against Nvidia executives and board members over using of copyrighted work to train AI models, brought not by authors or publishers, but by a Nvidia investor. In stockholder derivative suit, shareholder Jessica Berliner filed suit in the Northern District of Illinois, accusing the chip-making company of “adopting and implementing an unlawful business strategy whereby Nvidia used copyrighted and unlicensed materials, including books, videos, and commercial voices, to develop its Artificial Intelligence services.” The suit states that the defendants, including Nvidia founder and ceo Jensen Huang, violated their fiduciary obligations to shareholders and knew that their […]