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Research debt items: 6

AI Litigation Landscape¶

Summary¶

Generative AI is now a regular subject of civil litigation. The cases documented here fall into five clusters: (1) copyright in training data and model outputs, including news, books, music, images, datasets, and code, (2) copyright and trademark claims over AI-generated viral characters, (3) product-liability, enforcement, and speech defenses when chatbot products are alleged to have harmed users, (4) comparative German and English judgments, and (5) pending publisher and class actions that have not reached fair-use merits. Chatbot harm dockets are inventoried in Chatbot Product Liability and User-Harm Litigation. This page is an inventory, not a prediction of outcomes.

Verified Facts¶

Thaler v. Perlmutter (D.C. Cir. Mar. 18, 2025) held that the Copyright Act requires human authorship and affirmed refusal to register a work attributed solely to a generative-AI system.¹
The Copyright Office’s January 2025 copyrightability report concluded that purely AI-generated material is not copyrightable and that prompts alone do not provide sufficient human control on current generally available technology.²
Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence (D. Del. Feb. 11, 2025) rejected fair use for a non-generative legal-research AI trained on Westlaw headnotes to compete with Westlaw.³
Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (N.D. Cal. June 23, 2025) held that training Claude on books was transformative fair use but that a pirated permanent library was not; a $1.5 billion class settlement of piracy claims was finally approved July 20, 2026.⁴⁵
Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Inc. (N.D. Cal. June 25, 2025) granted Meta fair-use summary judgment on Llama training as to thirteen authors on that record, while leaving torrenting-distribution claims for later proceedings.⁶
The New York Times Company v. Microsoft Corp. (S.D.N.Y.) survived most of an April 4, 2025 motion to dismiss; an August 6, 2026 order dismissed material-contribution contributory claims premised on alleged end-user infringement.⁷⁸
In re OpenAI, Inc., Copyright Infringement Litigation (MDL No. 3143, S.D.N.Y.) centralized author and publisher actions; on October 27, 2025, the court denied OpenAI’s motion to dismiss author class output-infringement claims without deciding fair use.²²²³
Dow Jones & Co. v. Perplexity AI, Inc. (S.D.N.Y.) survived an August 21, 2025 motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and improper venue; a related Times action against Perplexity was later filed in the same district.²⁴
Spyder Games LLC v. Mementum Lab (N.D. Cal., filed Nov. 26, 2025) seeks a declaration that AI-generated “brainrot” characters used in Steal a Brainrot are not copyrightable. See Brain Rot and AI-Generated Meme Characters.⁹
Chatbot harm dockets are inventoried in Chatbot Product Liability and User-Harm Litigation: Garcia v. Character Technologies, Inc. (M.D. Fla. May 20, 2025) allowed most Character.AI wrongful-death claims to proceed; Raine v. OpenAI, Inc. and In re ChatGPT Product Liability Cases (JCCP No. 5431) collect California ChatGPT suicide and design-defect actions; Lyons v. OpenAI Foundation is the federal Soelberg-estate murder-suicide suit; Joshi v. OpenAI Foundation is the FSU shooting-victim action; Florida v. OpenAI Global, LLC is the first state AG civil enforcement suit; and Walters v. OpenAI, L.L.C. granted OpenAI summary judgment on a hallucination-defamation claim.¹⁰³¹³²³³³⁴³⁵
Music copyright dockets are inventoried in Music Copyright and Generative AI: UMG v. Suno and UMG v. Udio (sound recordings; partial dismissals; no U.S. fair-use holding), Concord v. Anthropic (lyrics; secondary and DMCA claims survive dismissal; Concord II alleges torrenting), BMG v. Anthropic (later publisher complaint; allegations only), Sony Music Publishing v. Anthropic (later publisher complaint naming founders; allegations only), and GEMA v. OpenAI (non-final German first-instance lyric judgment).¹¹¹²¹³¹⁴¹⁵²⁵²⁶
Image-generator dockets: Andersen v. Stability AI (artists’ class action; Copyright Act claims survive dismissal; DMCA dismissed), Disney v. Midjourney (studio character outputs; consolidated with Warner Bros. Discovery; discovery ongoing), and Getty Images v. Stability AI (English trial; secondary copyright dismissed after training claims were abandoned; U.S. action pending after a false-CMI dismissal).¹⁶¹⁷¹⁸¹⁹²⁷
Dataset and Google models: Kneschke v. LAION (German TDM exceptions for compiling an open image-text dataset) and In re Google Generative AI Copyright Litigation (some models dismissed with prejudice; Bard/Gemini/Imagen claims remain).²⁸²⁹³⁰
Open-source code: Doe 1 v. GitHub (Copilot; DMCA § 1202(b) dismissed with prejudice; license-contract claims survived; Ninth Circuit argument February 11, 2026).²⁰²¹

Case map¶

Cluster	Leading OIR page	What is actually decided (as of sources cited)
Output authorship	Thaler	Machine listed as sole author cannot register.
Training vs piracy	Bartz	Training fair use; pirated library not; piracy claims settled.
Training market harm	Kadrey	Fair use on this record; dilution theory undeveloped.
Competing research AI	Ross	Not fair use; tool was not generative.
News outputs	Times v. OpenAI	Claims largely survive dismissal; some secondary theories dismissed.
Author-class outputs (MDL)	In re OpenAI	Output claims survive 12(b)(6); no fair use.
Answer-engine news	Dow Jones v. Perplexity	Jurisdiction/venue survive; no fair-use ruling.
Meme-character ownership	Spyder	Pending declaration action.
Music masters	Suno / Udio	Pending; partial dismissals; no U.S. fair-use holding.
Music lyrics (U.S.)	Concord	Secondary and CMI claims survive 12(b)(6); Concord II alleges torrenting.
Music lyrics (BMG)	BMG v. Anthropic	Complaint filed Mar. 17, 2026; no merits ruling.
Music lyrics (DE)	GEMA	First-instance liability; not final.
Music lyrics (Sony/Warner)	Sony v. Anthropic	Complaint filed Aug. 28, 2026; no merits ruling.
Visual-artist training	Andersen	Copyright claims survive 12(b)(6); DMCA out.
Studio character outputs	Disney v. Midjourney	Pending; consolidated; discovery order 2026.
Image model (UK / U.S.)	Getty	UK: secondary copyright fails; limited TM; training claims abandoned. U.S.: false CMI out w/o prejudice; TM/UCL survive.
Dataset TDM (DE)	Kneschke	Download for research/general TDM; opt-out not machine-readable as reported.
Google generative models	In re Google Gen. AI	Some models out with prejudice; Bard/Gemini/Imagen remain.
Open-source Copilot	Doe v. GitHub	DMCA CMI dismissed; contract claims live; 9th Cir. argued.
Chatbot harm (companion)	Garcia	Design-defect claims proceed; speech defense not established at 12(b)(6).
Chatbot harm (ChatGPT cluster)	Harm inventory	Raine and JCCP 5431 pending; Lyons stay denied; Joshi and Florida AG pending; Walters SJ for OpenAI.

Legal Analysis¶

These dockets are not one “AI law.” Copyright training cases apply § 107 to copying that happens before a user sees an answer. Authorship cases ask who, if anyone, owns the answer or the image. Product-liability cases ask whether the software is a product whose design can be defective, which collides with First Amendment arguments that outputs are speech.¹⁰ The harm cluster is now larger than Garcia: California has coordinated twelve ChatGPT suits, Florida has filed a civil AG action and announced a criminal investigation of the FSU shooting, and Walters shows that at least one hallucination-defamation claim failed on a developed record.³¹³²³⁴³⁵

For open-internet and software-freedom work, two tensions matter. First, a broad training-is-always-infringement rule would raise the cost of building models, including open-weight models; Bartz and Kadrey show district judges already disagree about how to weigh that against market harm.⁴⁶ Second, treating chatbot text as unprotected non-speech at the pleading stage, as in Garcia, could expand design-defect litigation against conversational software without a merits record on causation.¹⁰

Criminal and sanctions cases involving software authors remain on Documented Proceedings Involving Software Authors and Operators; they are a different inventory.

Relationships¶

TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to TOPIC-AI-COPYRIGHT.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to TOPIC-BRAIN-ROT.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-THALER-V-PERLMUTTER.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-BARTZ-V-ANTHROPIC.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-KADREY-V-META.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-THOMSON-REUTERS-V-ROSS.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-NYT-V-OPENAI.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-SPYDER-V-MEMENTUM.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-GARCIA-V-CHARACTER-TECHNOLOGIES.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to TOPIC-AI-MUSIC-COPYRIGHT.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-UMG-V-SUNO.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-UMG-V-UDIO.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-CONCORD-V-ANTHROPIC.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-GEMA-V-OPENAI.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to TOPIC-FIRST-AMENDMENT.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to TOPIC-DEVELOPER-SOFTWARE-LIABILITY.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-GETTY-V-STABILITY.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-ANDERSEN-V-STABILITY.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-DISNEY-V-MIDJOURNEY.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-SONY-V-ANTHROPIC.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-DOE-V-GITHUB.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-IN-RE-OPENAI.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-DOW-JONES-V-PERPLEXITY.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-KNESCHKE-V-LAION.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-IN-RE-GOOGLE-GEN-AI.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-BMG-V-ANTHROPIC.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to TOPIC-AI-HARM-LITIGATION.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-RAINE-V-OPENAI.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-IN-RE-CHATGPT-PRODUCT-LIABILITY.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-LYONS-V-OPENAI.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-JOSHI-V-OPENAI.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-FLORIDA-V-OPENAI.
TOPIC-AI-LITIGATION related_to CASE-WALTERS-V-OPENAI.

Sources¶

SRC-THALER-V-PERLMUTTER-CADC: Thaler v. Perlmutter, 130 F.4th 1039 (D.C. Cir. 2025).
SRC-USCO-AI-COPYRIGHTABILITY-REPORT-2025: Copyright Office AI copyrightability report, Part 2 (2025).
SRC-THOMSON-REUTERS-V-ROSS-2025: Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence (D. Del. 2025).
SRC-BARTZ-V-ANTHROPIC-FAIR-USE: Bartz fair-use order (2025).
SRC-BARTZ-V-ANTHROPIC-FINAL-APPROVAL: Bartz settlement final approval (2026).
SRC-KADREY-V-META-FAIR-USE: Kadrey v. Meta (2025).
SRC-NYT-V-OPENAI-MTD-2025: Times MTD opinion (2025).
SRC-NYT-V-OPENAI-12C-2026: Times Rule 12(c) order (2026).
SRC-SPYDER-V-MEMENTUM-COMPLAINT: Spyder complaint (2025).
SRC-GARCIA-V-CHARACTER-MTD-2025: Garcia MTD order (2025).
SRC-UMG-V-SUNO-COMPLAINT: UMG v. Suno complaint (2024).
SRC-UMG-V-UDIO-COMPLAINT: UMG v. Udio complaint (2024).
SRC-CONCORD-V-ANTHROPIC-MTD-2025: Concord MTD denial (2025).
SRC-GEMA-V-OPENAI-LG-MUENCHEN-2025: GEMA v. OpenAI (2025).
SRC-SONY-V-ANTHROPIC-COMPLAINT-2026: Sony/Warner publisher complaint (2026).
SRC-ANDERSEN-V-STABILITY-MTD-2024: Andersen MTD order (2024).
SRC-DISNEY-V-MIDJOURNEY-COMPLAINT: Disney complaint (2025).
SRC-DISNEY-V-MIDJOURNEY-MTC-2026: Disney discovery order (2026).
SRC-GETTY-V-STABILITY-EWHC-2025: Getty UK judgment (2025).
SRC-DOE-V-GITHUB-MTD-2024: Doe v. GitHub MTD order (2024).
SRC-DOE-V-GITHUB-9THCIR-DOCKET: Doe Ninth Circuit docket.
SRC-JPML-OPENAI-MDL-3143: JPML Transfer Order, MDL No. 3143.
SRC-IN-RE-OPENAI-OUTPUT-MTD-2025: In re OpenAI output-claim MTD opinion (2025).
SRC-DOW-JONES-V-PERPLEXITY-MTD-2025: Dow Jones v. Perplexity MTD opinion (2025).
SRC-CONCORD-II-COMPLAINT: Concord II complaint (2026).
SRC-BMG-V-ANTHROPIC-COMPLAINT: BMG v. Anthropic complaint (2026).
SRC-GETTY-V-STABILITY-US-MTD-2026: Getty U.S. MTD order (2026).
SRC-KNESCHKE-LG-HAMBURG-2024: Kneschke LG Hamburg (2024).
SRC-KNESCHKE-OLG-HAMBURG-2025: Kneschke OLG Hamburg (2025).
SRC-GOOGLE-GEN-AI-MTD-2025: In re Google Generative AI MTD order (2025).
SRC-RAINE-V-OPENAI-COMPLAINT: Raine complaint (2025).
SRC-LYONS-V-OPENAI-MTD-2026: Lyons Colorado River order (2026).
SRC-JOSHI-V-OPENAI-COMPLAINT: Joshi complaint (2026).
SRC-FLORIDA-V-OPENAI-COMPLAINT: Florida AG civil complaint (2026).
SRC-WALTERS-V-OPENAI-SJ-2025: Walters summary-judgment order (2025).
SRC-TJLP-JCCP-5431-2026: Tech Justice JCCP update (2026).

Research Debt¶

Add EU AI Act public-enforcement matters only with official documents.
Verify Garcia docket for any 2026 settlement or judgment before stating the case is resolved.
Biometric-privacy and employment AI cases are not yet in this inventory.
Add any Ninth Circuit opinion in Doe v. GitHub.
Add Chicago Tribune and Britannica Perplexity complaints from those PDFs.
Remaining ChatGPT and Character.AI harm captions are tracked as research debt on TOPIC-AI-HARM-LITIGATION.

Document metadata¶

Last verified: 2026-09-03

SRC-THALER-V-PERLMUTTER-CADC — 130 F.4th 1039 (D.C. Cir. 2025). ↩
SRC-USCO-AI-COPYRIGHTABILITY-REPORT-2025 — Copyright Office Part 2 report (Jan. 2025). ↩
SRC-THOMSON-REUTERS-V-ROSS-2025 — D. Del. Feb. 11, 2025. ↩
SRC-BARTZ-V-ANTHROPIC-FAIR-USE — N.D. Cal. June 23, 2025. ↩↩
SRC-BARTZ-V-ANTHROPIC-FINAL-APPROVAL — N.D. Cal. July 20, 2026. ↩
SRC-KADREY-V-META-FAIR-USE — 788 F. Supp. 3d 1026 (N.D. Cal. 2025). ↩↩
SRC-NYT-V-OPENAI-MTD-2025 — S.D.N.Y. Apr. 4, 2025. ↩
SRC-NYT-V-OPENAI-12C-2026 — S.D.N.Y. Aug. 6, 2026. ↩
SRC-SPYDER-V-MEMENTUM-COMPLAINT — N.D. Cal. Nov. 26, 2025. Pending; allegations. ↩
SRC-GARCIA-V-CHARACTER-MTD-2025 — M.D. Fla. May 20, 2025. Pleading-stage order. ↩↩↩
SRC-UMG-V-SUNO-COMPLAINT — D. Mass. June 24, 2024. Pending. ↩
SRC-UMG-V-UDIO-COMPLAINT — S.D.N.Y. June 2024. Pending. ↩
SRC-CONCORD-V-ANTHROPIC-MTD-2025 — N.D. Cal. Oct. 6, 2025. ↩
SRC-GEMA-V-OPENAI-LG-MUENCHEN-2025 — LG München I Nov. 11, 2025. Not final. ↩
SRC-SONY-V-ANTHROPIC-COMPLAINT-2026 — N.D. Cal. Aug. 28, 2026. Pending; allegations. ↩
SRC-ANDERSEN-V-STABILITY-MTD-2024 — N.D. Cal. Aug. 12, 2024. ↩
SRC-DISNEY-V-MIDJOURNEY-COMPLAINT — C.D. Cal. June 11, 2025. Pending. ↩
SRC-DISNEY-V-MIDJOURNEY-MTC-2026 — C.D. Cal. June 15, 2026. ↩
SRC-GETTY-V-STABILITY-EWHC-2025 — [2025] EWHC 2863 (Ch). ↩
SRC-DOE-V-GITHUB-MTD-2024 — N.D. Cal. June 24, 2024. ↩
SRC-DOE-V-GITHUB-9THCIR-DOCKET — 9th Cir. No. 24-7700. ↩
SRC-JPML-OPENAI-MDL-3143 — JPML Transfer Order, MDL No. 3143. ↩
SRC-IN-RE-OPENAI-OUTPUT-MTD-2025 — S.D.N.Y. Oct. 27, 2025. ↩
SRC-DOW-JONES-V-PERPLEXITY-MTD-2025 — S.D.N.Y. Aug. 21, 2025. ↩
SRC-CONCORD-II-COMPLAINT — N.D. Cal. Jan. 28, 2026. Pending; allegations. ↩
SRC-BMG-V-ANTHROPIC-COMPLAINT — N.D. Cal. Mar. 17, 2026. Pending; allegations. ↩
SRC-GETTY-V-STABILITY-US-MTD-2026 — N.D. Cal. Apr. 23, 2026. ↩
SRC-KNESCHKE-LG-HAMBURG-2024 — LG Hamburg, 310 O 227/23 (Sept. 27, 2024). ↩
SRC-KNESCHKE-OLG-HAMBURG-2025 — OLG Hamburg, 5 U 104/24 (Dec. 10, 2025). ↩
SRC-GOOGLE-GEN-AI-MTD-2025 — N.D. Cal. Sept. 11, 2025. ↩
SRC-RAINE-V-OPENAI-COMPLAINT — Cal. Super. Ct. Aug. 26, 2025. Pending; allegations. See also SRC-TJLP-JCCP-5431-2026 and SRC-LYONS-V-OPENAI-MTD-2026 for JCCP 5431. ↩↩
SRC-LYONS-V-OPENAI-MTD-2026 — N.D. Cal. Apr. 13, 2026. Colorado River stay denied. ↩↩
SRC-JOSHI-V-OPENAI-COMPLAINT — N.D. Fla. May 10, 2026. Pending; allegations. ↩
SRC-FLORIDA-V-OPENAI-COMPLAINT — Fla. 10th Cir. Ct. June 1, 2026. Pending; allegations. ↩↩
SRC-WALTERS-V-OPENAI-SJ-2025 — Ga. Super. Ct. May 19, 2025. ↩↩