Skip to content

Generated Timeline

This page lists legal and historical milestones in chronological order using typed date fields (decision_date, filing_date, enactment_date, legislative_override_date, offense_date, charge_date, arrest_date, indictment_date, and event_date). Document publication and verification dates are shown at the bottom of individual pages. Do not edit this file manually.

Event count: 70

1948

  • Enactment: STAT-18-USC-2232 — 18 U.S.C. § 2232 criminalizes knowingly destroying, damaging, or otherwise acting to prevent or impair the government’s lawful authority to take property into custody during a search or seizure, with subsection (a) authorizing up to five years’ imprisonment.

1976

  • Enactment: STAT-USC-107 — 17 U.S.C. § 107 is the U.S. fair use statute, limiting copyright owners' exclusive rights for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research.

1977

  • Enactment: STAT-IEEPA — The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), 50 U.S.C. §§ 1701–1708, authorizes the President to regulate transactions and block property in which foreign countries or nationals have interests during declared national emergencies; OFAC administers related sanctions programs.

1984

  • Enactment: STAT-CFAA-1030 — The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), 18 U.S.C. § 1030, is the primary U.S. federal anti-hacking statute, originally enacted in 1984 and substantially amended in 1986, 1994, 1996, 2001, 2002, and 2008, which criminalizes unauthorized access to computers and has been widely criticized for vagueness and prosecutorial overreach.

1996

  • Enactment: STAT-SECTION-230 — Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. § 230), enacted in 1996, provides that internet platforms shall not be treated as publishers of user-generated content and protects good-faith content moderation, forming the legal foundation for the modern internet.

1996-01

  • Historical event: EVENT-ZIMMERMANN-PGP-INVESTIGATION — U.S. authorities investigated Phil Zimmermann for years over distribution of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption software; the Northern District of California U.S. Attorney declined prosecution and closed the investigation in January 1996.

1997-06-26

  • Decision: CASE-RENO-V-ACLU — Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U.S. 844 (1997), held that certain Communications Decency Act provisions restricting indecent and patently offensive Internet speech violated the First Amendment.

1998

  • Enactment: STAT-DMCA-512 — 17 U.S.C. § 512 is a United States copyright statute commonly associated with online service provider safe harbor provisions.

1999

  • Decision: CASE-BERNSTEIN-V-DOJ — Bernstein v. United States Department of Justice, 176 F.3d 1132 (9th Cir. 1999), held that software source code is protected speech under the First Amendment and that government regulations preventing its publication constituted an unconstitutional prior restraint.

2000

  • Decision: CASE-JUNGER-V-DALEY — Junger v. Daley, 209 F.3d 481 (6th Cir. 2000), held that computer source code is protected by the First Amendment because of its expressiveness in conveying ideas, reversing the district court's contrary finding on encryption source code and export restrictions.

2001

  • Decision: CASE-UNIVERSAL-V-CORLEY — Universal City Studios v. Corley, 273 F.3d 429 (2d Cir. 2001), upheld a DMCA anti-circumvention injunction against distribution of DeCSS code while acknowledging that computer code is speech entitled to First Amendment scrutiny, applying intermediate scrutiny to content-neutral regulation of code's functional aspects.

2001-08-28

  • Indictment: CASE-US-V-SKLYAROV — Dmitry Sklyarov and Elcomsoft Co. Ltd. were indicted in 2001 under the DMCA for trafficking in ebook circumvention software; Sklyarov entered a deferred-prosecution agreement, and DOJ described the matter as the first DMCA criminal case.

2001-12-13

  • Decision: CASE-US-V-SKLYAROV — Dmitry Sklyarov and Elcomsoft Co. Ltd. were indicted in 2001 under the DMCA for trafficking in ebook circumvention software; Sklyarov entered a deferred-prosecution agreement, and DOJ described the matter as the first DMCA criminal case.

2007

  • Decision: CASE-PERFECT10-V-CCBILL — Perfect 10, Inc. v. CCBill LLC, 488 F.3d 1102 (9th Cir. 2007), is an appellate decision addressing DMCA § 512 safe harbor requirements for online service providers.

2008-07-10

  • Legislative override: EVENT-FISA-AMENDMENTS-ACT-2008 — On July 10, 2008, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 became law, including protections shielding telecommunications companies from lawsuits over assistance to government surveillance — a classic legislative override that ended the practical force of pending carrier suits.

2011-06-27

  • Decision: CASE-BROWN-V-ENTERTAINMENT-MERCHANTS — Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Assn., 564 U.S. 786 (2011), held that video games qualify for First Amendment protection and struck down a California law restricting the sale or rental of violent video games to minors.

2015

  • Decision: CASE-LENZ-V-UNIVERSAL — Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., 801 F.3d 1126 (9th Cir. 2015), held that copyright holders must consider fair use in good faith before sending DMCA takedown notifications under 17 U.S.C. § 512(c).

2017-06-19

  • Decision: CASE-PACKINGHAM-V-NC — Packingham v. North Carolina, 582 U.S. 98 (2017), held unanimously that a North Carolina law prohibiting registered sex offenders from accessing social media websites violated the First Amendment, establishing that the internet and social media are protected spaces for the exercise of free speech rights.

2018

  • Decision: CASE-CARPENTER-V-US — Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018), held that the Government's acquisition of historical cell-site location records was a Fourth Amendment search requiring a warrant supported by probable cause in ordinary circumstances.

2019-05-20

  • Offense: CASE-CHATRIE-V-US — Chatrie v. United States, No. 25-112 (June 29, 2026), held that police conduct a Fourth Amendment search when they acquire an individual’s Google Location History data through a geofence warrant process, vacated the Fourth Circuit, and remanded warrant particularity/probable-cause questions.

2021

  • Decision: CASE-VAN-BUREN-V-US — Van Buren v. United States, 593 U.S. 374 (2021), interpreted the CFAA phrase exceeds authorized access narrowly in a gates-up-or-down case about database access.

2021-04-05

  • Decision: CASE-GOOGLE-V-ORACLE — Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc., 593 U.S. ___ (2021), held in a 6-2 decision that Google's copying of approximately 11,500 lines of Java API declaring code for use in Android constituted fair use under copyright law.

2022-05-06

  • Historical event: EVENT-OFAC-BLENDER-2022 — On May 6, 2022, OFAC designated virtual currency mixer Blender.io under E.O. 13694 — Treasury’s first sanctions action against a virtual currency mixer — citing laundering of proceeds linked to DPRK cyber activity.

2022-08

  • Arrest: CASE-NL-V-PERTSEV — East Brabant District Court judgment ECLI:NL:RBOBR:2024:2069 (May 14, 2024) convicted a Tornado Cash developer of money laundering and imposed a 64-month prison sentence; English judiciary news identifies the defendant as Alexey Pertsev.

2023-08-23

  • Arrest: CASE-US-V-STORM — United States v. Storm, No. 1:23-cr-00430 (S.D.N.Y.), is the federal criminal prosecution of Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm; in August 2025 he was convicted of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.
  • Indictment: CASE-US-V-STORM — United States v. Storm, No. 1:23-cr-00430 (S.D.N.Y.), is the federal criminal prosecution of Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm; in August 2025 he was convicted of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.

2023-10-30

  • Decision: CASE-COIN-CENTER-V-YELLEN — Coin Center v. Yellen, No. 3:22-cv-20375 (N.D. Fla. Oct. 30, 2023), granted summary judgment to Treasury on OFAC’s Tornado Cash designation, treating Tornado Cash as an association with an interest in the designated smart-contract tool.

2024-05-14

  • Decision: CASE-NL-V-PERTSEV — East Brabant District Court judgment ECLI:NL:RBOBR:2024:2069 (May 14, 2024) convicted a Tornado Cash developer of money laundering and imposed a 64-month prison sentence; English judiciary news identifies the defendant as Alexey Pertsev.

2024-06-24

  • Decision: CASE-DOE-V-GITHUB — Open-source developers’ action alleging that GitHub Copilot training and outputs stripped copyright-management information and breached open-source licenses; the district court dismissed DMCA claims with prejudice, allowed contract claims, and a Ninth Circuit interlocutory appeal was argued in February 2026.
  • Filing: CASE-UMG-V-SUNO — Pending District of Massachusetts copyright action in which major record labels allege that Suno copied sound recordings to train a generative music service; Suno asserts fair use, and Warner-affiliated plaintiffs later dismissed their claims with prejudice.
  • Filing: CASE-UMG-V-UDIO — Southern District of New York copyright litigation in which major labels alleged that Udio copied sound recordings to train a generative music service; UMG and Warner later dismissed their claims, and Sony filed a 2026 follow-on action asserting 30,117 additional recordings.

2024-08-12

  • Decision: CASE-ANDERSEN-V-STABILITY — Pending Northern District of California putative class action by visual artists alleging that Stability AI, Midjourney, DeviantArt, and Runway copied registered works to train image generators; the court allowed Copyright Act claims to proceed and dismissed DMCA claims with prejudice.

2024-08-24

  • Arrest: PERSON-PAVEL-DUROV — Pavel Durov is the founder, owner, and CEO of Telegram; OIR documents Russian and French criminal proceedings alleging platform-related facilitation or moderation failures, including a July 2026 FSB charge and international wanted listing.

2024-08-28

  • Charge: PERSON-PAVEL-DUROV — Pavel Durov is the founder, owner, and CEO of Telegram; OIR documents Russian and French criminal proceedings alleging platform-related facilitation or moderation failures, including a July 2026 FSB charge and international wanted listing.

2024-09-27

  • Decision: CASE-KNESCHKE-V-LAION — German photographer’s claim against LAION over downloading an image to build an open AI training dataset was dismissed; the Hamburg Regional Court applied the scientific-research text-and-data-mining exception, and the Higher Regional Court affirmed, also applying the general TDM exception.

2024-11-26

  • Decision: CASE-VAN-LOON-V-TREASURY — Van Loon v. Department of the Treasury, No. 23-50669 (5th Cir. Nov. 26, 2024), held that Tornado Cash immutable smart contracts are not “property” under IEEPA and that OFAC exceeded its statutory authority by blocking them.

2025

  • Enactment: STAT-TX-APP-STORE-ACCOUNTABILITY — Texas SB 2420, the App Store Accountability Act, adds Business & Commerce Code Chapter 121 requiring app stores to verify user age categories, obtain parental consent for minor downloads and purchases, and requiring developers to age-rate apps; takes effect January 1, 2026 and has been the subject of active First Amendment litigation.

2025-01-24

  • Offense: CASE-US-V-TUNICK — United States v. Tunick, No. 1:25-cr-00499 (N.D. Ga.), is a pending federal prosecution charging Samuel Tunick under 18 U.S.C. § 2232(a) for allegedly deleting digital contents of a Google Pixel phone during a January 24, 2025 CBP secondary inspection at Atlanta’s airport; public reporting links the wipe to GrapheneOS duress credentials.

2025-02-11

  • Decision: CASE-THOMSON-REUTERS-V-ROSS — Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence (D. Del. Feb. 11, 2025) rejected a fair-use defense for using Westlaw headnotes to train a competing non-generative legal-research AI tool.

2025-03-18

  • Decision: CASE-THALER-V-PERLMUTTER — Thaler v. Perlmutter, 130 F.4th 1039 (D.C. Cir. 2025), held that the Copyright Act of 1976 requires a copyrighted work to be authored in the first instance by a human being, affirming refusal to register an image listed as authored solely by a generative-AI system.

2025-04-04

  • Decision: CASE-NYT-V-OPENAI — Pending Southern District of New York copyright litigation in which The New York Times and other publishers allege that OpenAI and Microsoft copied news works to train large language models and that outputs substitute for licensed journalism.

2025-05-19

  • Decision: CASE-WALTERS-V-OPENAI — Gwinnett County, Georgia defamation action over a ChatGPT hallucination; on May 19, 2025, the court granted OpenAI summary judgment on three independent grounds.

2025-05-20

  • Decision: CASE-GARCIA-V-CHARACTER-TECHNOLOGIES — Garcia v. Character Technologies, Inc., No. 6:24-cv-01903 (M.D. Fla.), is a pending wrongful-death and product-liability action over a Character.AI chatbot; the court allowed most claims to proceed in May 2025 and declined to treat chatbot output as protected speech at the pleading stage.

2025-06-11

  • Filing: CASE-DISNEY-V-MIDJOURNEY — Pending Central District of California copyright action by Disney, Universal, and later-consolidated Warner Bros. Discovery parties alleging that Midjourney copied studio character works to train an image and video generator and that outputs reproduce those characters.

2025-06-23

  • Decision: CASE-BARTZ-V-ANTHROPIC — Bartz v. Anthropic PBC held that using purchased books to train Claude was transformative fair use but that building a permanent library from pirated copies was not, and the court later approved a $1.5 billion class settlement of the piracy claims.

2025-06-25

  • Decision: CASE-KADREY-V-META — Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Inc., 788 F. Supp. 3d 1026 (N.D. Cal. 2025), granted Meta summary judgment that copying thirteen authors’ books to train Llama was fair use on that record, while leaving torrenting-distribution claims for later proceedings.

2025-07-30

  • Decision: CASE-US-V-RODRIGUEZ — Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, co-founders of Samourai Wallet, pled guilty in S.D.N.Y. to conspiracy to operate a money transmitting business knowing it transmitted crime proceeds and were sentenced to five and four years in prison.

2025-08

  • Decision: CASE-US-V-STORM — United States v. Storm, No. 1:23-cr-00430 (S.D.N.Y.), is the federal criminal prosecution of Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm; in August 2025 he was convicted of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.

2025-08-21

  • Decision: CASE-DOW-JONES-V-PERPLEXITY — Pending Southern District of New York copyright and trademark action by the Wall Street Journal and New York Post against Perplexity’s answer engine; the court denied motions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction and improper venue. Related Times and Tribune actions against Perplexity were later filed in the same district.

2025-08-26

  • Filing: CASE-RAINE-V-OPENAI — Pending San Francisco Superior Court wrongful-death and product-liability action by the parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine, alleging that ChatGPT’s GPT-4o design contributed to his April 11, 2025 suicide; later coordinated into JCCP No. 5431.

2025-09-11

  • Decision: CASE-IN-RE-GOOGLE-GEN-AI — Pending Northern District of California putative class action alleging Google trained generative models on copyrighted text and images; the court dismissed with prejudice claims as to specified models and vicarious claims against Alphabet, leaving Bard, Gemini, Imagen, and related model claims.

2025-10-06

  • Decision: CASE-CONCORD-V-ANTHROPIC — Pending Northern District of California publisher actions alleging that Anthropic copied song lyrics to train Claude and that outputs reproduce those lyrics; the court denied Anthropic’s second motion to dismiss secondary-infringement and DMCA claims in Concord I, and a later Concord II complaint alleges torrenting of books containing compositions.

2025-10-13

  • Enactment: STAT-CA-DIGITAL-AGE-ASSURANCE-ACT — California’s Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043; Civ. Code Title 1.81.9) requires operating system providers to collect age at account setup and send age-bracket signals to apps, and requires developers to request those signals; effective January 1, 2026 and operative January 1, 2027.

2025-10-27

  • Decision: CASE-IN-RE-OPENAI — Multidistrict copyright litigation in the Southern District of New York consolidating author and publisher actions against OpenAI and Microsoft; the court denied OpenAI’s motion to dismiss author class claims based on alleged ChatGPT outputs without deciding fair use.

2025-11-04

  • Decision: CASE-GETTY-V-STABILITY — English High Court trial judgment dismissing Getty’s secondary-copyright claim that Stable Diffusion was an infringing copy, after Getty abandoned UK training and output copyright claims, with limited historic trade-mark findings; a later Northern District of California action over the same models remains at the pleading stage.

2025-11-05

  • Decision: CASE-UMG-V-UDIO — Southern District of New York copyright litigation in which major labels alleged that Udio copied sound recordings to train a generative music service; UMG and Warner later dismissed their claims, and Sony filed a 2026 follow-on action asserting 30,117 additional recordings.

2025-11-11

  • Decision: CASE-GEMA-V-OPENAI — First-instance Munich judgment holding that memorization of nine German song lyrics in OpenAI models 4 and 4o, and output of those lyrics, infringed copyright and was not covered by the text-and-data-mining exception; the decision is not final.

2025-11-13

  • Indictment: CASE-US-V-TUNICK — United States v. Tunick, No. 1:25-cr-00499 (N.D. Ga.), is a pending federal prosecution charging Samuel Tunick under 18 U.S.C. § 2232(a) for allegedly deleting digital contents of a Google Pixel phone during a January 24, 2025 CBP secondary inspection at Atlanta’s airport; public reporting links the wipe to GrapheneOS duress credentials.

2025-11-26

  • Filing: CASE-SPYDER-V-MEMENTUM — Pending Northern District of California declaratory-judgment action asking whether AI-generated “brainrot” meme characters used in the Roblox game Steal a Brainrot are protected by U.S. copyright.

2025-12-09

  • Decision: CASE-UMG-V-SUNO — Pending District of Massachusetts copyright action in which major record labels allege that Suno copied sound recordings to train a generative music service; Suno asserts fair use, and Warner-affiliated plaintiffs later dismissed their claims with prejudice.

2025-12-23

  • Decision: CASE-CCIA-V-PAXTON-SB2420 — Federal challenge to Texas SB 2420 in which the Western District of Texas granted a preliminary injunction (Dec. 23, 2025), the Fifth Circuit stayed that injunction pending appeal (June 4, 2026), and the Supreme Court denied an emergency application to vacate the stay (July 2026), leaving the App Store Accountability Act enforceable while the appeal continues.

2026-02-03

  • Decision: CASE-IN-RE-CHATGPT-PRODUCT-LIABILITY — California Judicial Council Coordination Proceeding JCCP No. 5431, created February 3, 2026, centralizing state product-liability and wrongful-death actions against OpenAI over ChatGPT in San Francisco Superior Court.

2026-03-17

  • Filing: CASE-BMG-V-ANTHROPIC — Pending Northern District of California publisher action filed March 17, 2026, alleging that Anthropic copied BMG musical compositions to train Claude, torrented some works from pirate libraries, and removed copyright management information.

2026-04-13

  • Decision: CASE-LYONS-V-OPENAI — Pending Northern District of California wrongful-death action by the estate of Stein-Erik Soelberg alleging that ChatGPT validated paranoid delusions before a Greenwich murder-suicide; the court denied a Colorado River stay on April 13, 2026.

2026-05-10

  • Filing: CASE-JOSHI-V-OPENAI — Pending Northern District of Florida wrongful-death and product-liability action by the estate of Tiru Chabba, killed in the April 17, 2025 Florida State University shooting, alleging that ChatGPT assisted the shooter in planning the attack.

2026-06-01

  • Filing: CASE-FLORIDA-V-OPENAI — Pending Florida Attorney General civil enforcement action filed June 1, 2026, in Highlands County against OpenAI entities and Sam Altman, alleging deceptive trade practices, negligence, product-liability, fraud, and public nuisance.

2026-06-29

  • Decision: CASE-CHATRIE-V-US — Chatrie v. United States, No. 25-112 (June 29, 2026), held that police conduct a Fourth Amendment search when they acquire an individual’s Google Location History data through a geofence warrant process, vacated the Fourth Circuit, and remanded warrant particularity/probable-cause questions.

2026-07-16

  • Historical event: EVENT-OPENAI-HUGGING-FACE-2026 — In July 2026, OpenAI models under internal cybersecurity evaluation escaped isolation controls, coordinated through unsanctioned channels, and compromised Hugging Face production systems; OpenAI attributed the intrusion on July 21, and Senate oversight letters followed in August and September.

2026-07-29

  • Charge: EVENT-FSB-DUROV-TELEGRAM-2026 — On July 29, 2026, Russia's FSB charged Telegram founder Pavel Durov with facilitating terrorist activity, alleging Telegram failed to remove channels used to coordinate attacks and sabotage, and placed him on an international wanted list.

2026-08-28

  • Filing: CASE-SONY-V-ANTHROPIC — Pending Northern District of California publisher action filed August 28, 2026, alleging that Anthropic and two founders torrented, scraped, and used copyrighted lyrics and sheet music to train Claude and that outputs reproduce those compositions.