Welcome: Here is additional coverage of AI-related lawsuits.
Generative AI Lawsuits: September 2024 Updates
September 26 - Meta Lawsuit: A group of U.S. authors can depose Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a lawsuit accusing Meta of misusing copyrighted books to train its AI systems, Reuters reported. Meta had tried to block the group from questioning Zuckerberg.
September 19 - Meta Lawsuit: A federal judge brutally dressed down the lawyers for a group of high-profile authors who are suing Meta over the use of their work to train Meta's AI technology, Politico reported.
Septembner 18 - Lawsuit vs Nvidia: Neural AI has filed suit against Nvidia, alleging that a suite of software, including AI tools, infringed several machine learning technology patents, Bloomberg Law reported. An Nvidia spokesperson declined to comment about the suit to Bloomberg Law.
September 16 - Lawsuit vs Google: Gemini Data, a small AI company, has filed suit against Google, Reuters reported, claiming the search giant allegedly violated trademark rights to the Gemini name.
Generative AI Lawsuits: August 2024 Updates
August 28 - OpenAI Responds: In a court filing, OpenAI denied that it misused the work of authors including Michael Chabon, Ta-Nehisi Coates and comedian Sarah Silverman to train its AI language model, Reuters reported.
August 21 - Class-Action Lawsuit vs. Anthropic: Authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson have filed a class-action lawsuit against Anthropic, alleging that Anthropic “built a multibillion-dollar business by stealing hundreds of thousands of copyrighted books,” CNBC reported.
August 21 - Content License: Magazine publisher Conde Nast has signed a multi-year licensing deal with OpenAI, The Information reported. Content from Conde Nast publications will now appear within OpenAI products such as ChatGPT and SearchGPT, the report said.
August 14 - X (formerly Twitter) Faces Lawsuit: Austrian advocacy group NOYB filed a complaint against social media platform X Reuters reported, accusing the Elon Musk-owned company of training its AI with users' personal data without their consent in violation of EU privacy law.
August 12 - Lawsuit vs Intel: Software maker Anaconda has sued Intel in Delaware federal court, accusing the chipmaker of misusing its software for developing artificial-intelligence platforms, Reuters reported. Related: Generative AI lawsuit timeline.
August 9 - AI Lawsuit: Software maker Anaconda has sued Intel in Delaware federal court, accusing the chipmaker of misusing its software for developing artificial-intelligence platforms, Reuters reported. Related: Generative AI lawsuit timeline.
August 5 - Elon Musk vs. OpenAI: Elon Musk revived a lawsuit against ChatGPT maker OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, alleging that OpenAI put profits and commercial interests ahead of the public good, Reuters reported. Musk has also launched xAI to compete against OpenAI.
August 2 - Scope Narrowed: A U.S. District Judge dismissed a claim accusing OpenAI of unfair business practices by utilizing the works of authors — including Sarah Silverman, Paul Tremblay and Ta-Nehisi Coates — without consent or compensation to power its AI system, The Hollywood Reporter said. However, the authors' primary claim for direct copyright infringement remains in the case, the report added.
Generative AI Lawsuits: July 2024 Updates
July 31 - AI Investigation: The UK's antitrust agency is taking a look at Google's partnership with artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, SeekingAlpha reported.
July 31 - AI Concerns: Perplexity AI debuted a revenue-sharing model for publishers after more than a month of plagiarism accusations, CNBC reported.
July 19 - Lawsuit vs OpenAI and Microsoft: OpenAI escaped a copyright lawsuit from a group of open-source programmers after they voluntarily dismissed their case against the AI company in federal court, Bloomberg reported. However, the programmers' case against GitHub and parent company Microsoft continues forward.
July 13 - OpenAI Concerns: OpenAI whistleblowers have filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging the AI company illegally prohibited its employees from warning regulators about the grave risks its technology may pose to humanity, The Washington Post reported.
July 11 - Legal Representation: AI music companies Suno and Udio have hired elite law firm Latham & Watkins to defend them against AI lawsuits filed by the three major labels in late June 2024, Billboard reported.
July 5 - Court Ruling: OpenAI and GitHub escaped legal claims from open-source software programmers alleging the AI coding tool Copilot replicated their code without proper copyright notices and licensing information, Bloomberg Law reported.
July 1 - New York Times vs. OpenAI: In a lawsuit twist, OpenAI wants The New York Times to prove it is the source of certain content, according to a letter from OpenAI's attorneys to a New York judge.
Generative AI Lawsuits and Licensing Deals: June 2024 Updates
June 28 - European Union Scrutinizes OpenAI-Microsoft Deal: The European Union is escalating its scrutiny of the artificial intelligence industry, including taking a fresh look into Microsoft’s multibillion-dollar partnership with OpenAI, the Associated Press reported.
June 27 - Alleged Content Scraping: Amazon’s cloud division has launched an investigation into Perplexity AI, Wired reported/ At issue is whether the AI search startup is violating AWS rules by scraping websites that attempted to prevent it from doing so, the report said.
June 27 - New Lawsuit: The Center for Investigative Reporting -- parent of Mother Jones and Reveal, has sued ChatGPT maker OpenAI and Microsoft, marking a new front in the legal battle between news publications fighting against unauthorized use of their content on AI platforms, the Associated Press reported.
June 27 - OpenAI Content Partnership: TIME and OpenAI announced a multi-year content deal that brings TIME's content to OpenAI’s products, including ChatGPT. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
June 26- YouTube Content Licensing Deals?: YouTube is in talks with record labels to license their songs for artificial intelligence tools that clone popular artists’ music, hoping to win over a skeptical industry with upfront payments, Financial Times reported. Google, a key investor in AI startup Anthropic, owns YouTube.
June 25 - Anthropic Legal Case: Anthropic has convinced a Tennessee federal judge to move music publishers’ lyrics copyright lawsuit to a California district court, Bloomberg Law reported. The judge ruled the eight music publishers, which include Universal Music Group and Concord Music Group Inc., failed to prove the Tennessee court had personal jurisdiction, the Bloomberg report said.
June 24 - Music Industry Files Lawsuit: Some of the biggest record labels in the music industry have sued two AI startups -- Suno and Udio -- alleging that they have committed copyright infringement on an “almost unimaginable scale” by developing AI tools that can generate music tracks based on a user’s prompt within seconds, The Indian Express reported. The plaintiffs – Sony Music, Universal Music Group, Atlantic Records, Warner Bros, Capitol Records, and a few others – filed two separate complaints on June 24, the report noted.
June 14 - Proposed Lawsuit Settlement: Facial recognition company Clearview AI has agreed to resolve claims that it violated the privacy rights of millions of Americans, Reuters reported, reaching an unusual class action settlement based on a theoretical stake in the company's future value.
June 11 - AI Lawsuit Dropped: Tesla CEO Elon Musk dropped his lawsuit against OpenAI and co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, CNBC reported. In the suit, Musk alleged that OpenAI abandoned its social-good mission in order to focus on revenue opportunities.
More: Continue to next page for additional AI-related lawsuits.
It is important to understand that while AI technology brings many benefits, there are also legal issues that need to be resolved, especially in relation to copyright. Hopefully, all parties can find a fair and balanced solution so that innovation can continue to thrive without compromising the rights of content creators. Thank you for the very informative information!
is the page not being updated anymore? i come back here every few weeks or so lol
Hi Bruno: I unplugged for a portion of May 2025 to rethink some of Sustainable Tech Partner's content strategy. The timeline is now updated to reflect milestones through June 15, 2025. Thank you for coming back for the updates, and for taking the time to post a comment. Best,
-jp
Can you update again to reflect the current status as of July?
Dear AvidReader: Thank you for your readership and the nudge. We've updated the article as of July 29. 2025. -jp
This timeline is great and all, but it doesn't answer a bigger question I've been pondering, which is how do we stop the likes of Jensen Huang, Lisa Su, Sam Altman and others from just having their way unchecked. The latest news has been about their seemingly uncontrolled data center construction projects causing harm to the residents and neighbors of said projects. People are complaining about their health being impacted and difficulties with greatly increased electricity bills. We've got the whole thing going on now with the RAM and storage prices just going up and up and up with no obvious limit in sight. How do we stop these trillion-dollar corporations cold? How do we make them stop with all this? Surely there has to be a way to force them to heel. How do we put these damned CEOs down, once and for all, for the good of mankind and the planet? Those are my concerns and thanks for any replies.
Hi Stephen: Thanks for your readership and comments. I understand and empathize with many of your concerns. But I don't see those executives & their corporations as all bad or all good. I believe there are nuances.
I don't see a need to "put these damned CEOs down, once and for all, for the good of mankind and the planet," as you state.
I do see valid concerns about electricity bills, seemingly uncontrolled data center projects, health, and rising technology prices.
In those areas, a growing number of towns and municipalities are voting no or pushing back against data center initiatives. As USA Today reported, Surging electricity rates put data centers on 2026 ballot.
And Microsoft, for instance, has vowed to pay its own way to ensure Microsoft data centers don't trigger rising electricity prices for local communities.
I'd encourage you to reach out to your local government representatives to express your concerns. And to vote in every election. And to join grass roots groups that are organizing against runaway Big Tech projects.
But I'd also encourage you and all readers to gather all sides of the story. How are certain data centers and their associated applications truly helping humankind? How are certain sustainable IT businesses ensuring that data centers mitigate or at least minimize their environmental impact?
Thousands of hardworking, ethical people work for Big Tech, midsize tech and small tech. I encourage our readers to keep those hardworking folks and their authentic missions in mind: Scientific research. Climate research. Health care. And so much more.
Thank you again for taking the time to express your concerns and views.
-jp
This timeline is incredibly insightful! It’s fascinating to see how various tech giants are navigating the legal landscape surrounding generative AI. The impact of these lawsuits could shape the future of AI development and usage, and I'm especially interested in how the outcomes will influence ethical guidelines in the industry. Thanks for compiling such a detailed resource!
Thanks for taking the time to read the timeline and post a comment. We'll strive to keep the timeline updates coming.
-jp