Both Meta and OpenAI are being sued by authors for copyright infringement. OpenAI requested the plaintiffs' "responses to interrogatories and requests for admission, expert witness materials disclosed by or on behalf of plaintiff and deposition transcripts and exhibits for plaintiffs' expert witnesses," pointing to the similarities between the two disputes. U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert M. Illman of the Northern District of California, however, was not convinced.
"What the court struggles to understand is why OpenAI needs that information from [Kadrey et al. v. Meta Platforms Inc.], why it would not be duplicative of the information [it] has solicited or can solicit from plaintiffs in this case, and why OpenAI thinks putting plaintiffs to the burden of producing this broad swath of information from Kadrey would be proportional to OpenAI's needs in this case," he wrote.
According to court documents, plaintiffs in the cases against Meta and OpenAI accuse them of using the plaintiffs' books to train their large language models. The Meta suit involves the set of large language models known as LLaMA, which the company created and maintains.
The decision on Thursday was one of multiple rulings on discovery disputes between the parties. In a separate discovery ruling Thursday, the judge denied the plaintiffs' request to add former OpenAI manager Katie Mayer, who the authors believe was responsible for projects involving the interaction between Microsoft and OpenAI, as a custodian.
The authors argued that the court "has already concluded that the documents Katie Mayer likely possesses are relevant," but the court said they had not identified any specific documents or categories of information that she alone would possess.
"The mere fact that plaintiffs now believe that Ms. Mayer had a role that was more important than they previously believed to be the case does not provide a concrete foundation for their conclusory assertion that it is a possibility that she possesses unique, relevant information," Judge Illman wrote. "While this approach may have justified designating her as a custodian at an earlier phase in the discovery process, the court finds that plaintiffs have not made a satisfactorily concrete showing that would justify adding her as a custodian at this juncture."
Judge Illman also denied the plaintiffs' request to make OpenAI deploy its proposed search strings, saying the authors are "trying to relitigate an issue they have already lost."
OpenAI, meanwhile, is seeking information from the authors' agents, who negotiated publishing and licensing agreements for their works. The judge ordered the authors to produce the requested materials or certify that they had found no additional materials after the parties have met and conferred.
"The court finds that this dispute is representative of the parties talking past one another — that it is the manifestation of poor meet-and-confer efforts — and that the 'dispute' evades judicial resolution as it has been presented," he said.
OpenAI is represented by Allison Schall Blanco and Elana Nightingale Dawson of Latham & Watkins LLP, Edward Andrew Bayley and Christopher Sun of Keker Van Nest & Peters LLP and John R. Lanham of Morrison Foerster LLP.
The class is represented by David Boies, Maxwell V. Pritt, Joshua M. Stein, Reed D. Forbush, Jesse Panuccio and Evan M. Ezray of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP and Joseph R. Saveri, Cadio Zirpoli, Christopher K.L. Young, Holden Benon and Aaron Cera of the Joseph Saveri Law Firm LLP.
The case is Tremblay et al. v. OpenAI Inc. et al., case number 3:23-cv-03223, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
--Editing by Karin Roberts.
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