Book authors have asked a New York federal judge to rule that OpenAI built its AI models on “mass piracy”. Pointing to internal documents, a summary judgment motion alleges the AI giant downloaded books from LibGen, hid the evidence by renaming datasets, and designed its models to supplant human writers. OpenAI filed the mirror-image motion, stressing that its data harvesting qualifies as fair use.
Source: OpenAI’s ChatGPT Was Built on Concealed ‘Mass Piracy’, Authors Tell Court
Court filings made Friday in a closely watched copyright trial pitting The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft invoked a wide range of material, including relevant copyright law, arts and sports. The briefs, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, largely boiled down to two questions: whether the publishers’ news articles were sufficiently “transformed” into an entirely new work by A.I., and whether A.I. produced content that “substituted” for news articles and harmed their value.
Source: Court Filings in A.I. Suit Invoke Copyright Law, Culture and Sports
A US federal judge has thrown out the copyright theory at the center of the lawsuit that accused Bad Bunny, Drake, and more than 150 other artists of copying the “dembow” rhythm used across reggaeton. Judge André Birotte Jr. ruled that the plaintiffs had failed to identify a single copyrighted work of their own that contains the combination of elements they are trying to protect. The order reverses the decision Birotte issued on July 1, which had left the protectability of the rhythm for a jury.
Source: Bad Bunny wins crucial reggaeton ‘dembow’ rhythm ruling
SOCAN has filed a Suno copyright lawsuit of its own, accusing the platform of unlawfully training on protected works and then generating infringing outputs. SOCAN submitted the straightforward complaint to Canada’s Federal Court today, moments after activist artist David Lowery as well as Latin label Gerencia 360 fired off distinct actions against Suno in the U.S. Despite the clear-cut differences between those plaintiffs and to some extent their precise claims, the suits touch on the same main points.
Source: SOCAN Sues Suno for Allegedly ‘Engaging in Rampant Copyright Infringement
District Judge Analisa Torres has rejected the interlocutory appeal request, indicating in part that the “MLC has not met its burden to show that there is a ‘substantial ground for difference of opinion’ as to the Court’s dismissal order.” “The Court adheres to its opinion that the plain text of § 385.2 leaves no ambiguity as to whether Premium combines ‘one or more products or services’ having ‘more than token value’ with a subscription music streaming service,” Judge Torres wrote.
Source: Federal Judge Rejects MLC’s Interlocutory Appeal Push in Spotify Bundling Battle
A routine John Doe lawsuit could become part of Strike 3 Holdings’ $446 million AI training case against Meta. The adult film producer wants to link the two lawsuits, arguing that a Reality Labs executive downloaded nearly 20,000 files at his home for work purposes, not for personal use. Meta counters that the alleged home downloads are not linked to the company.
Source: Adult Film Producer Unmasks Prolific ‘John Doe’ Torrent Pirate as Meta Executive
Almost a day after the Justice Department filed paperwork in federal court backing OpenAI in its consolidated copyright infringement battle with the New York Times, Florida and Arkansas papers, The Intercept, other outlets, Ta-Nehisi Coates and a galaxy of scribe stars, the NYT took the tech-lord-friendly administration to the woodshed. “The Administration is siding with a handful of trillion-dollar AI companies at the expense of the countless American creators whose work they stole,” Times spokesman Graham James told Deadline tonight.
Source: NY Times Rips DOJ for Backing AI Companies in Class Action
In a lawsuit that The New York Times filed against OpenAI, the Trump administration has contributed a 20-page brief in defense of the ChatGPT maker’s unlicensed use of copyrighted material to train its LLMs. “The United States has a strong interest in continuing to develop a robust and competitive artificial intelligence industry that sets the standard for the practice and procedure of AI use globally… As such, it is critical for the United States to ‘retain global leadership in artificial intelligence,’” the brief reads
Source: US government sides with OpenAI on issue of training LLMs on copyrighted material
Some authors hoping to receive their share of Anthropic’s $1.5 billion copyright settlement said they received surprising emails this week — emails informing them that someone else was making a claim on their payments. Under the terms of the settlement, the authors will be paid $3,000 for each pirated work. If the book is still in print with a traditional publisher, the money will be split 50-50 between author and publisher. But writers have been posting on social media that publishers seem to be claiming more than their fair share of some payments.
Source: Authors push back as publishers and agents make claims on Anthropic settlement
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) tackled these questions in its judgment of 9 July 2026 in Anne Frank Fonds v Anne Frank Stichting and Others (Case C-788/24). Its answer is both technologically pragmatic and legally significant: effective geo-blocking can define and restrict the group of internet users to whom an online work is communicated, and the mere possibility that such restrictions may be circumvented using a VPN does not necessarily result in a communication to the public in the protected territory.
Source: Copyright without digital borders? The CJEU on geo-blocking, VPNs and territoriality