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Mealey's Copyright

  • May 16, 2025

    Anthropic Admits Its Claude AI Mangled Cite Used By Expert In Copyright Suit

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — Anthropic PBC’s Claude artificial intelligence mangled a citation to a study referenced by an expert in a discovery dispute during formatting, but it was an “honest citation mistake” and the crux of the cite and the positions for which it stands were all correct, the company lawyer said May 15 in a response to a federal judge in California overseeing a copyright case.

  • May 15, 2025

    Judge Stays Discovery In ‘Miss Cleo’ IP Fight While Mulling Dismissal

    NEW YORK — A New York federal judge held that defendant television networks illustrated that there was adequate reason to stay discovery while the court considers a motion to dismiss intellectual property claims related to the television psychic character “Miss Cleo”; the judge held that the Psychic Readers Network Inc. (PRN) failed to show that it would be prejudiced by the stay of discovery.

  • May 15, 2025

    OpenAI Must Preserve Output Data, Magistrate Judge Says

    SAN FRANCISCO — OpenAI entities must preserve user output data and segregate output log data going forward after consolidated news plaintiffs indicated that the amount of data being deleted is significant and the company offered no evidence about any efforts it was taking or could take to preserve the evidence, a federal magistrate judge in California said while setting a briefing schedule and hearing on potential spoliation motions.

  • May 15, 2025

    Court Won’t Reconsider Limiting Copyright To Humans

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied rehearing and rehearing en banc of a ruling limiting copyright protections to human authors, turning away a man’s arguments that artificial intelligences share similarities with corporations entitled to such protections.

  • May 14, 2025

    AI Plaintiffs Direct Court To Copyright Office Report On Fair Use

    SAN FRANCISCO — The plaintiffs in an artificial intelligence copyright suit directed a federal judge in California to a recent U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) report suggesting that fair use defenses might not be available when the AI’s purpose is similar to that of the copyrighted training data and that “the speed and scale at which” AIs can produce similar works could be considered an effect on the market.

  • May 13, 2025

    Authors, Nvidia Agree To Consolidate AI Copyright Suits

    SAN FRANCISCO — Authors in a pair of federal suits in California alleging improper use of copyrighted material to train artificial intelligence agreed in a May 12 joint stipulation to consolidate their actions against Nvidia Corp.

  • May 09, 2025

    If Corporations Enjoy Copyright Protection, So Should AI, Man Says

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Corporations and artificial intelligences share similarities, such a lack of natural lifespans and families, yet copyright protections for the former “is simply not controversial” while a panel rejected such protections for the later, a man says in a petition for en banc review of a District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appealsruling requiring a human author for copyright purposes.

  • May 07, 2025

    8th Circuit Won’t Reverse Noninfringement Finding In Website Building Suit

    ST. LOUIS — An Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed the findings of a Missouri federal judge and a federal jury in a sprawling dispute over copyrighted code between two companies owned by members of the same family, along with multiple veterinary companies whose websites were built by a defendant printing company; the panel agreed with the judge’s decision to find in favor of the defendants on copyright infringement claims.

  • May 06, 2025

    Nvidia Wants Pair Of NeMo Megatron AI Training Copyright Suits Consolidated

    SAN FRANCISCO — Because plaintiffs in a pair of copyright suits involving the artificial intelligence training material already treat two cases similarly, consolidation would ensure ongoing conservation of judicial and party resources without any risk of delaying either action, Nvidia Corp. tells a federal judge in California in urging consolidating.

  • May 02, 2025

    Damages In Rolling Paper Trademark Row Reasonable, 11th Circuit Says

    ATLANTA — An 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Georgia federal judge’s decision to enter nearly $1.2 million in damages against defendant entities in a trademark dispute over tobacco rolling papers, noting both that the damages fell within the statutory standard and that the defendant entities did not object to jury instructions regarding damages.

  • May 01, 2025

    9th Circuit Says Sam Smith Single Could Be Similar To Earlier Song

    SAN FRANCISCO — A panel in the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appels revived a copyright infringement suit in a California federal court against singer Sam Smith and others over the song “Dancing with a Stranger”; the panel said that a jury could reasonably see substantial similarity between the song’s chorus and that of a song written by the plaintiffs-appellants.

  • April 30, 2025

    7th Circuit Affirms Jury’s Findings, Judge’s Injunction In Rolling Paper IP Fight

    CHICAGO — A Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a jury’s mixed verdict in an intellectual property dispute between two tobacco companies related to cigarette rolling papers made of hemp, which led to cross-appeals; the panel rejected arguments from the parties that a federal judge erred in responding to a question from jurors and that the judge’s injunction was overly broad.

  • April 29, 2025

    Supreme Court: No Certiorari For Challenge To 9th Circuit ‘Server Test’

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on April 28 denied a petition for a writ of certiorari from a photographer who challenged a decision from the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that upheld a California federal judge’s decision to dismiss the photographer’s copyright infringement suit based on the Ninth Circuit’s so-called “server test.”

  • April 29, 2025

    9th Circuit: Judge Abused Discretion By Tossing Copyright Suit With Prejudice

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge abused discretion when dismissing with prejudice a musician’s copyright infringement suit against another musician for alleged infringement of a song’s chorus, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, despite the plaintiff-appellant failing to respond to the defendant’s motion for summary judgment on the pleadings.

  • April 28, 2025

    OpenAI Scrapes Websites In Violation Of Its Own Instructions, Publisher Says

    WILMINGTON, Del. — OpenAI boasts about measures publishers can use to prevent the use of their online works in the training of artificial intelligence but then ignores those measures and scrapes copyrighted works from websites anyway, the online publishers of more than 45 media brands like Mashable, Lifehacker and IGN claim in an infringement complaint filed in Delaware federal court.

  • April 28, 2025

    Judge Says ‘Superman’ Copyright Suit Belonged In California, Dismisses

    NEW YORK — A New York federal judge dismissed the most recent complaint involving the rights to the copyrights to comic book character Superman, holding that the District Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the suit brought by the nephew of one of the character’s co-creators against DC Comics Inc. and other entities over alleged infringement of the character in multiple foreign nations.

  • April 23, 2025

    Judge Strikes Class Claims From Google AI Copyright Suit, Allows Amendment

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — As originally defined, a proposed class in an artificial intelligence copyright action constituted an improper fail-safe class, a federal judge in California said while allowing an amendment that cures the defect and finding two Google LLC entities’ challenge to the new class definition premature.

  • April 22, 2025

    Anthropic Says AI Copyright Action Too Unwieldy For Class Certification

    SAN FRANCISCO — An artificial intelligence copyright class action spans a century, would include more than five million works owned by various people, trusts and other entities and would require the court to decide ownership millions of times over, a company tells a federal judge in California in an opposition to certification.  In a separate letter brief, Anthropic PBC tells the court that the plaintiffs were misrepresenting a court’s order and the course and timing of discovery.

  • April 22, 2025

    AI Challengers Ask Court To Reconsider Denying Leave To Amend

    NEW YORK — The creation of multidistrict litigation governing copyright claims against OpenAI entities warrants reconsideration of a ruling denying leave to amend a complaint so that the consistency and finality goals at the heart of the consolidated litigation are assured, media outlets targeting the removal of copyright management information (CMI) from their works tell a federal judge in New York.

  • April 22, 2025

    Supreme Court Rejects Rehearing Bid For Fees In Photo Copyright Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a rehearing petition from a real estate company sued by a photography company for copyright infringement in which the real estate outfit argued for a final time that it was due attorney fees as the prevailing party in the case after the photography company voluntarily dismissed the infringement suit.

  • April 11, 2025

    Coders Push Back On DMCA Identicality Ruling In AI Case

    OAKLAND, Calif. — The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) does not impose a requirement that distributed works be identical to the protected work and even if it did, allegations that Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI entities removed copyright management information and used exact copies of the works to train artificial intelligence would meet the standard, two coders tell the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in an opening brief.

  • April 11, 2025

    11th Circuit: No Fees For Tossed IP Claims In Land Purchase Dispute

    ATLANTA — An 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel left in place a jury’s finding that defendant real estate entities breached a land purchase agreement (LPA) but owed a plaintiff real estate company only $1 in damages; the panel also affirmed a Georgia federal judge’s decision to deny attorney fees to the plaintiff company for claims brought under the Copyright Act and the Lanham Act.

  • April 11, 2025

    Judge Won’t Extend Time For Amended Complaint In AI Music Copyright Suit

    NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York denied a motion to extend the time for recording companies to file an amended complaint without leave of the court in their suit against an artificial intelligence company but said they can seek leave to file such a pleading whenever it is convenient.

  • April 09, 2025

    Supreme Court Rejects Artist’s Duct-Taped Banana Art Copyright Petition

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by an artist who sued another artist who went viral after duct-taping a banana to a wall at a Miami art fair, leaving in place a finding from the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that the petitioner failed to show how the work infringed on his own art piece also involving a banana duct-taped to a wall from nearly two decades earlier.

  • April 09, 2025

    Judge Dismisses ‘Blade Runner’ IP Suit Against Tesla, Others With Leave To Amend

    LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California dismissed with leave to amend an independent film studio’s complaint against Tesla Inc., Elon Musk and Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., after issuing a tentative holding that the company adequately suggested for the purpose of surviving a dismissal motion that Tesla and Musk may have infringed upon copyrights related to the 2017 film “Blade Runner 2049” while promoting Tesla’s planned “cybercab” product.