Here is our latest review and assessment of major AI-related disputes in the media and entertainment sectors.
Our AI Litigation Tracker is prepared by McKool Smith principal Avery Williams.
1. Richard Kadrey, et al. v. Meta
Current Status: Judge Chhabria denies Plaintiffs’ bid for interlocutory appeal. This week, Judge Chhabria ruled on Plaintiffs’ motion to certify the issue of whether the piracy of a work for use as training data is de facto copyright infringement regardless of whether the ultimate use qualifies as fair use. Meta had opposed the motion, arguing that it would unnecessarily delay the case. Judge Chhabria agreed. In his order denying the motion, he explained that the question was a difficult one but also expressed that it would not be long before there was a final judgement on one of the Meta cases and that he would prefer that these issues “be presented to the Court of appeals as part of a tidy package.”
2. SDNY Multi-District Litigation
Current Status: Microsoft opposes News Plaintiffs’ motion for leave to amend complaint. In the wake of the Cox Communications decision, various plaintiffs in the multi-district litigation have been voluntarily dismissing their contributory infringement claims. The News Plaintiffs, however, moved to amend their complaint and, if permitted, will allege that Microsoft has in fact tailored its systems to contribute to infringement by OpenAI, meeting the new Cox Communications standard. This makes sense given the highly-publicized partnership between the two companies.
This week, Microsoft filed its opposition to News Plaintiffs’ motion, arguing that they had their opportunity to raise a “tailored to” argument from the outset of the case but chose not to until Cox Communications came along. According to Microsoft, Plaintiffs had the information they would need to make their currently proposed amendment back in 2024 but they chose not to. Thus, they argue, Microsoft would be unfairly prejudiced by permitting amendment.
3. Sony v. Uncharted Labs (d/b/a Udio)
Current Status: The Court denies plaintiffs’ bid to add 30,000 new works. This week included no notable new filings, but last week the Court denied Plaintiffs’ bid to add 30,000+ new works to their complaint. By way of background, late last month Plaintiffs moved to amend their Complaint to add additional works which they alleged were also infringed. The Court declined their motion, finding that such an addition would expand the scope of the dispute and delay the resolution of the central question in the case regarding whether Udio’s use of songs as training data was fair use.
4. Hendrix v. Apple
Current Status: The Court grants the parties’ stipulated protective order. This case has seen little movement since Plaintiffs filed their consolidated complaint followed by Apple filing their answer. However, this week the parties submitted a stipulated protective order to the Court which was subsequently granted. The order provides for the inspection and printing of source code, indicating that technical discovery is beginning behind the scenes.
5. UMG Recordings v. Suno
Current Status: No major substantive developments this past week. This case mirrors Sony v. Uncharted Labs in many respects, including Defendants’ filing of a similar motion to amend their complaint to add additional works. Suno’s response was near identical to that filed in the Udio case and discussed above. Likewise, UMG Recordings submitted a Reply that mirrored the Reply in Sony v. Uncharted Labs. This week saw no notable new additions to the docket, though it seems like a denial of Plaintiffs’ motion to amend may be forthcoming given the outcome in Uncharted Labs.
6. Concord Music Group, et al. v. Anthropic
Current Status: No major substantive developments this past week. With summary judgment on the horizon, this case has not seen any major updates since late June, when the Court granted leave for amicus curiae briefs to be filed. Check back soon for our analysis of those issues, which are likely to heavily analyze the existing decisions on fair use handed down in the Northern District of California by Judges Chhabria and Alsup.
7. Sarah Andersen et al. v. Stability AI, et al.
Current Status: No major substantive developments this past week. This week included nothing particularly notable on the docket. Three weeks ago, the Court extended the schedule for near-term discovery issues by about a month and for events including and following expert discovery by two months. Additionally, the Court ordered the parties to continue meeting and conferring regarding deposition witnesses. The Court has also recently ruled in favor of Defendants on discovery issues, permitting them to obtain discovery into Plaintiffs’ financial records and denying Plaintiffs’ efforts to obtain additional search results relating to “art” or “artist” datasets.
8. Reddit v. Anthropic
Current Status: No major substantive developments this past week. There have been few developments in this case since it was transferred back to state court. Around mid-June, Anthropic filed a motion to dismiss Reddit’s claims, in which it argued that Reddit’s breach of contract claims are preempted because they address the same harms that the Copyright Act seeks to protect against. Anthropic also questioned whether Reddit’s browsewrap agreement were sufficient to form contractual obligations in the first place.
9. Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. v. Midjourney
Current Status: No major substantive developments this past week. As discussed recently, Midjourney had filed a motion seeking documents related to the development of Disney’s own Generative AI development and its in-house use of such technologies. Recently, the Court issued an order regarding that motion in which it largely rejected Midjourney’s reasoning, finding that Disney’s use of AI was irrelevant to the fair use factors. Nonetheless, the Court did recognize that this information could be relevant to issues related to common industry practices and to Midjourney’s unclean hands defense. As such, the Court granted limited access to documents relating to Disney’s use and training of AI systems. This week included no notable new filings on the docket.
10. Disney et al. v. MiniMax & Hailuo AI
Current Status: No major substantive developments this past week. This week saw no notable developments. Two weeks ago, Plaintiffs filed their answer to counterclaims raised by the Defendants—namely that the accused services’ Terms of Use became binding on Disney when it performed initial research ahead of filing suit and that Disney therefore has indemnified Defendants or otherwise breached their contract. The Answer itself is short, with Disney largely denying all allegations related to the formation of a contract between the parties. This is a unique issue not yet seen in other copyright cases, so check back soon to see if the Court addresses the argument in the near term.
11. Elsevier et al. v. Meta
Current Status: No major substantive developments this past week. This case has not seen any notable developments since late last month, when Meta moved to transfer the case to the Northern District of California. Meta argued that the case should be lumped in with Kadrey v. Meta and the other NDCA cases against Meta, all of which have been related to Kadrey. The motion was joined by Mark Zuckerberg, who was sued individually alongside Meta.
