1. Richard Kadrey, et al. v. Meta
Current Status: Meta files supplemental briefing opposing Plaintiffs’ motion to amend their complaint. To set the stage: the Kadrey Plaintiffs previously requested that the Court permit limited additional discovery into Meta’s torrenting activities and then allow concurrent briefing for summary judgment regarding liability as well as for class certification. Meta countered by asking that the case instead be stayed pending resolution of summary judgment. Last week, Judge Chhabria held a hearing regarding this motion during which he denied the request for a stay and provided tentative views, requesting additional briefing due from Meta (on February 13th) and Plaintiffs (on February 20th).
This week, Meta filed briefing which provides more context from last week’s hearing. Per their briefing, the hearing included a finding by Judge Chhabria that Plaintiffs’ delay in amending their complaint to add contributory infringement claims was “inexcusable.” Meta argued that, based on this finding, Plaintiffs’ requested amendment should be denied. Meta additionally argued that, were the Court to certify the class, the class members should be barred from bringing any claims that could have been brought previously (including claims for contributory infringement or infringement based on training).
2. SDNY Multi-District Litigation
Current Status: Court grants Plaintiffs’ motion to compel: Plaintiffs fish for more non-training uses of their works. The multi-district litigation continues to be mired in a variety of discovery disputes. This past week, on February 11th, the Court held a discovery status conference in which it decided a number of current issues. A selection of issues addressed is presented below:
The Court directed Defendants to file responses to Plaintiffs’ questions regarding Project Giraffe (OpenAI’s internal tool for blocking copyright-infringing outputs) by February 12th, adding that Plaintiffs could file a new motion to compel the following day if any document requests remained. Additionally, the Court granted Class Plaintiffs’ request for in camera review of clawed-back and redacted documents.
Further, the Court assessed the Class Plaintiffs’ motion for additional discovery regarding copies of pirated material that messages indicate was being used for purposes other than training. Effectively, messages appear to indicate that OpenAI employees downloaded material from shadow libraries not only for training but also to use as part of their work. The Court instructed the parties to meet and confer regarding these materials and directed Class Plaintiffs to file a new motion to compel if necessary, adding that it would assess costs if such a motion was necessary.
3. UMG Recordings v. Uncharted Labs (d/b/a Udio)
Current Status: No major substantive developments this past week. Following a number of settlements, recent weeks have seen no notable new filings. Within the past month, Plaintiffs UMG Recordings, Capitol Records, Atlantic Recording Corp., Rhino Entertainment Co., and Warner Music all filed stipulations of dismissal, leaving Sony Music Entertainment as the lone plaintiff in the case. A joint status conference previously set for December 12th was cancelled, but a replacement conference has not yet been scheduled. Several weeks ago, the Court granted a three-month extension to complete document production, but no significant new filings have made their way to the docket since.
4. UMG Recordings v. Suno
Current Status: Status conference rescheduled for March. This case has been in the same position as UMG Recordings v. Uncharted Labs for some time. Various plaintiffs have stipulated to dismissal, leaving Sony still in the case. Since then, updates have been few and far between. Last week, Magistrate Judge Paul Levenson scheduled a status conference for February 11th which may provide more insight into the current status of the case, but that conference has been rescheduled for March 12th as of last.
5. Concord Music Group, et al. v. Anthropic
Current Status: No major substantive developments this past week. Several weeks ago, the Court ordered Plaintiffs to respond to Anthropic’s motion for relief from the Magistrate Judge’s order regarding investigative prompts and outputs. Anthropic had previously requested an order that Plaintiffs must produce the prompts which they used to investigate Claude’s ability to output lyrics. Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen took a middle path in ruling on this motion, ordering the production of post-suit investigatory prompts and denying access to pre-suit prompts. Anthropic’s motion for relief argued that, in order to mount an effective defense, they needed to be able to distinguish prompts which were crafted by Plaintiffs from those which were the result of disinterested third parties.
Last week, Plaintiffs submitted their response, arguing that Anthropic can already distinguish prompts from third parties from those crafted by Plaintiffs because they had already produced the prompt-output pairs from their pre- and post-suit investigations. Accordingly, they argue, there is no need to reveal their usernames and account information. In any event, they argued that the additional discovery that Anthropic requested was privileged as work product.
Also last week, the Court related the Concord Music Group, Inc. et al. v. Anthropic PBC, Dario Amodei, and Benjamin Mann case to this one this week, finding (unsurprisingly, given the same parties’ involvement) that the two cases involved common legal and discovery issues.
This week included no notable new filings.
6. Sarah Andersen et al. v. Stability AI, et al.
Current Status: No major substantive developments this past week. As discussed previously, the Andersen Plaintiffs are attempting to add additional allegations to their complaint targeting direct infringement by several defendants, and a hearing on this issue has been set for February 25th. Two weeks ago, Plaintiffs further requested an approximately four-month extension on currently scheduled deadlines, perhaps to provide themselves more runway with which to evaluate these new claims should they be permitted to add them. Defendants have opposed this motion.
Additionally, the Court rebuffed Plaintiffs two weeks ago on several discovery issues, denying their request that Midjourney be compelled to provide more detailed answers to interrogatories regarding their training process and requiring Plaintiffs to produce expert reports, deposition transcripts, and discovery from the related In re Google litigation. Last week, however, the Court granted Plaintiffs additional time until February 18th to make those documents available.
This week included few notable new filings, though the parties did submit a joint status update indicating that discovery was continuing as expected, with the close of fact discovery scheduled for June 1st.
7. Reddit v. Anthropic
Current Status: No major substantive developments this past week. As discussed previously, the main dispute in this case is presently whether it should be removed to federal court from California state court. There have been no new developments this week, but three weeks ago the Court issued a series of questions to both parties to assist with deciding that issue. Those questions included whether Reddit’s content falls within the subject matter of copyright under 17 U.S.C. §§ 102-103 and requests for legal precedent to clarify issues related to various common law claims raised by Reddit.
The following week, Reddit and Anthropic both submitted answers to the Court’s questions. Reddit clarified the nature of its dispute, explaining that although much of Reddit’s content—namely the posts, images, and comments users submit to Reddit—is subject to copyright, not all of the information Anthropic is alleged to have scraped is copyrightable. This non-copyrightable information includes factual information such as usernames, upvote/downvote counts, and the nesting of posts and comments. According to Reddit, it is this non-copyrightable information that is especially valuable to Anthropic because it represents statistical information about user preferences (e.g., via upvotes and downvotes). Reddit explained that its claims of breach of contract still reach non-copyrightable information because Anthropic was obligated not to scrape anything from Reddit.
Anthropic appeared to dispute some of Reddit’s allegations regarding copyright, stating that a repository of online content (e.g., the link-sharing aspect of Reddit’s posts) may not fall within the Copyright Act’s protections. Additionally, Anthropic disputed whether any contract existed with Reddit, stating that Reddit’s User Agreement is only hyperlinked on the website but that users are not required to view it, which would be insufficient to establish an enforceable browse-wrap contract.
8. Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. v. Midjourney
Current Status: No major substantive developments this past week. This matter has been slow to start, with filings to date being largely administrative in nature. Late last year, Plaintiffs and Midjourney filed a joint stipulation to consolidate this action with the related action involving Warner Bros. Additionally, the case received a pretrial schedule several weeks ago marking August 21, 2026, as the deadline to file a report relating to the outcome of mediation. Deadlines resume afterward, with non-expert discovery closing on September 21, 2026, and expert discovery closing on November 9, 2026.
Over a month ago, the Court scheduled an “informal discovery conference” for January 12th, asking the parties to provide a joint status update on January 8th. Although the parties provided such an update, the Court vacated the informal conference based on the parties’ statement that they had resolved the dispute. This week saw no new filings.
9. Hendrix v. Apple
Current Status: The parties file an amended complaint. As discussed last year, the parties and the Court agreed to relate the present case to another case filed against Apple by Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen Macknick. More recently, the Court accepted another request to relate a case by Tasha Alexander against Apple. Based on a hearing held last week, the Court appointed William Dreher from Keller Rohrback and Rohit Nath from Susman Godfrey as interim co-lead counsel. This appointment will be in effect for one year, through the end of January 2027, with reappointment submissions scheduled for the last Friday of December.
This past week, the parties filed an amended complaint which included additional factual allegations regarding the ways in which Apple integrates its models into its products and the manner in which these models have impaired the market for Plaintiffs’ works. These later additions are likely setup for exactly the argument that Kadrey’s Judge Chhabria suggested the plaintiffs in that case should have made to overcome the fair use defense raised by Meta. In particular, the Hendrix class members discuss the manner in which generative AI outputs compete with human authors’ work product based on a 2025 working paper.
10. Disney et al. v. MiniMax & Hailuo AI
Current Status: No major substantive developments this past week. Months ago, Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. filed suit against AI companies offering video generation products. The complaint is similar to the one filed by Disney against Midjourney and has been assigned to Judge Stanley Blumenfeld and Magistrate Judge Charles Eick.
This case has seen little recent activity. Last week, Disney submitted a status report in which it reemphasized its ongoing effort to serve defendants under the Hague Convention. The report also explained that Disney has been unsuccessful in locating a registered business in China for MiniMax and believes that it may be a “doing business as” name. Disney believes the most efficient approach is to wait until other defendants appear through counsel so that it can determine the proper identity of the various defendants. This week, however, included no significant new filings.