Generative AI Lawsuits Timeline: Legal Cases vs. OpenAI, Microsoft, Anthropic, Nvidia and More

Some media companies and content producers have filed lawsuits against Generative AI (artificial intelligence) software companies such as OpenAI (maker of ChatGPT), Microsoft, Anthropic, Midjourney, Stability AI and DeviantArt, and chip giant Nvidia.

Many of the lawsuits involve alleged copyright infringement. In short, the complaints often claim that AI companies illegally train various large language models (LLMs) on copyrighted content from media companies.

In response, Generative AI companies typically say the lawsuits are without merit because their business strategies leverage "fair use" to train their AI models.

Meanwhile, some media companies are licensing their content to Generative AI companies -- though financial terms of such deals typically remain confidential.

The stakes are extremely high for all Internet content producers, generative AI companies and their investors. Previous technology waves -- from search engines to streaming services -- disrupted traditional paid media content models. Critics allege that Generative AI could further pressure content providers, claiming that AI is illegally gathering and leveraging trademarked information. As a result, Generative AI threatens the sustainability of content producers worldwide, critics claim.

The timeline below, updated regularly, tracks Generative AI lawsuits, legal cases, judgments, settlements, licensing agreements, and business outcomes. Check back regularly for updates.

Generative AI Lawsuits: April 2024 Updates

April 22 - Former Employee vs. Amazon: A former Amazon employee alleges that the company breached its own copyright rules involving AI and Alexa, The Register reported. In a lawsuit, the former employee alleges alleging discrimination, retaliation, harassment and wrongful termination, among other claims." An Amazon spokesperson says the company does not tolerate discrimination, harassment, or retaliation in our workplace, the report said.

April 6 - YouTube and IT Training: OpenAI and Google trained their AI models on text transcribed from YouTube videos, potentially violating creators’ copyrights, according to The New York Times. The report surfaced a few days after YouTube CEO Neal Mohan said in an interview with Bloomberg Originals that OpenAI’s alleged use of YouTube videos to train its new text-to-video generator, Sora, would go against the platform’s policies. A Yahoo News summary is here.

April 3 - Settlement - George Carlin Estate vs. AI: George Carlin‘s estate has settled a lawsuit over an AI-generated imitation of the late comedian, with the creators agreeing to remove it from their YouTube channel and podcast feed, Variety reported.

Generative AI Lawsuits: March 2024 Updates

March 13 - New York Times vs. OpenAI Lawsuit: The New York Times denied an OpenAI claim that the newspaper improperly used OpenAI products to create "highly anomalous results" as part of its lawsuit against the AI startup, SeekingAlpha reported.

March 11 - Lawsuit vs. Nvidia: Three authors -- Brian Keene, Abdi Nazemian and Stewart O'Nan -- have sued Nvidia because the chip giant alleged used their copyrighted books without permission to train its NeMo AI platform, Reuters reported.

Lawsuits and Partnerships: February 2024 Updates

February 29 - Elon Musk Sues OpenAI: Elon Musk sued OpenAI and its Chief Executive Sam Altman, alleging they broke the artificial-intelligence company’s founding agreement by prioritizing profit over the benefit of humanity, The Wall Street Journal reported.

. February 29 - SEC Investigates OpenAI: The SEC is scrutinizing internal communications by OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman as part of an investigation into whether the company’s investors were misled, The Wall Street Journal reported.

February 28 - More AI Lawsuits: News organizations The Intercept, Raw Story and AlterNet sued OpenAI in New York federal court on February 28, 2024, accusing the Microsoft-backed company of misusing their articles to train the artificial-intelligence system behind its popular chatbot ChatGPT, Reuters reported.

February 22 - AI Licensing: Social media platform Reddit has struck a deal with Google to make its content available for training the search engine giant's AI models, Reuters reported.

February 14 - Music Lawsuits vs. Anthropic: Music publishers Universal Music Group, ABKCO and Concord Music Group allege that Anthropic is relying on falsehoods to defend against a lawsuit accusing the AI company of misusing hundreds of their song lyrics, Reuters reported.

February 13 - Lawsuits Partially Dismissed: A federal judge dismissed most of a lawsuit brought by comedian Sarah Silverman, author Ta-Nehisi Coates and other content creators against OpenAI, the Hollywood Reporter said.

February 12 - Revenues: OpenAI’s revenues have surpassed $2 billion on an annualized basis, as the runaway success of its flagship artificial intelligence product ChatGPT puts it among the fastest-growing technology companies in history, The Financial Times reported.

February 9 - OpenAI Revenues: OpenAI’s revenues have surpassed $2 billion on an annualized basis, as the runaway success of its flagship artificial intelligence product ChatGPT puts it among the fastest-growing technology companies in history, The Financial Times reported.

February 6 - Microsoft and Media Alliances: Microsoft is collaborating with various news organizations to help them adopt generative AI. However, the relationships are not related to solving the New York Times lawsuit against Microsoft involving alleged copyright infringement, according to blogger Paul Thurrott.

More: Continue to page two for additional AI-related lawsuits.