PayAuthorscom

News

AI copyright news, graded by source

Court rulings, company filings and allegations in the copyright cases against AI companies and pirate libraries, over books, articles, music, images, video and code. Checked for new filings every three hours; items are posted after review, so some appear later. Get these by e-mail · Court filings, free to read

Each item is graded by its source: a court’s ruling or order; a company’s own filing about itself; a defendant’s filing arguing its side; a plaintiffs’ filing; the claims in a complaint (allegation); or press reporting.

What the labels mean

Get these updates by e-mail

For all news.

How the e-mails work

Uses the search, kind and company you set above (not the month or sort). As we post means within about 15 minutes of a new item; digests go out in the morning, U.S. Central time, weekly on Mondays, and only when something new matches. Updates start right away, and every e-mail has a one-click unsubscribe. If you tick Catch me up, the earlier items that match also come two a day, oldest first, each morning until you are up to date; you can stop that alone from any e-mail. Someone you invite gets one e-mail asking them to accept, and nothing more unless they do; we don’t tell them who invited them. Privacy.

Court rulingFebruary 20, 2025The Intercept Media, Inc. v. OpenAI, Inc. · S.D.N.Y., No. 1:24-cv-01515

Judge Rakoff explains why The Intercept's claim that OpenAI stripped copyright information from its articles before training survives, while its distribution claim and claims against Microsoft fail

On Feb. 20, 2025, Judge Jed Rakoff issued the opinion behind his Nov. 21, 2024 bottom-line order (Dkt. 122). That order had dismissed all claims against Microsoft with prejudice, dismissed The Intercept's DMCA 1202(b)(3) distribution claim with prejudice, and let its 1202(b)(1) removal claim against OpenAI proceed. The opinion rejects OpenAI's standing argument, holding that removal of copyright management information is closely related to property harms copyright has long recognized and that publication to a third party is not required, parting ways with Judge McMahon's Raw Story ruling. On the merits it finds intentional removal plausibly pleaded on information and belief, given that OpenAI's data is secret, and finds the knowledge element met under the theory that OpenAI had reason to know removal would facilitate downstream infringement, pointing to ChatGPT's reproduction of articles, its marketing and OpenAI's indemnity for commercial users. The court said a lenient scienter standard "does not give The Intercept a free pass." The 1202(b)(3) claim failed because the complaint did not plausibly allege OpenAI distributed the articles.

Opinion and Order, Dkt. 127 (via Oregon State Bar IP Section) ↗ChatGPT Is Eating the World post, Feb. 20, 2025 ↗

Loading the rest of the news…

What the labels mean

Every item says what kind of source it rests on. A court ruling or order is the court's own statement. A company filing is what a defendant says about itself. A government filing is a statement by a government agency that is not a party to the case, such as a statement of interest; it is the government's position, not a ruling. An allegation is what a complaint or motion claims and has not been decided. Reported means press reporting we have not confirmed from the primary document. Summaries are our own; follow the links for the source.

This page is general information, not legal advice. An allegation is not a finding. Whether any of this matters for a particular work or claim is a question for a lawyer.