Industry & Advocacy News

Understanding the AI Class Action Lawsuits

Artificial Intelligence

May 6, 2025

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Approximately a dozen lawsuits have been brought in California and New York courts against various AI companies for copyright infringement based on the companies’ unauthorized copying of authors’ works to train their generative AI models. All of the cases brought by individual authors so far are class action lawsuits, meaning that they do not just cover the plaintiffs named in each lawsuit but all people who fall within the “class,” as defined in the lawsuit.

The Authors Guild has received many questions from authors about these cases. The current AI class actions are summarized below, and we’ve also put together an overview of the key features of class action lawsuits.

Guild members who have additional questions can contact our Legal Services team at staff@authorsguild.org, and potential class members can contact the lawyers in the various cases.

Who Is Covered by the AI Cases?

Each of the cases brought on behalf of authors thus far has defined the class somewhat differently, though they all cover U.S. book authors whose books have been copied and used to train the AI model(s) at issue in the case. Some classes have been defined in the complaints a little more broadly. A final decision on who exactly is covered by each case will be made by the court as part of class certification.

What Are the Current Cases?

The current AI suits brought by writers (several of which have been consolidated into combined proceedings) are listed below. Except where noted, all of these cases involve books:

California

• Bartz v. Anthropic, No. 3:24-cv-05417 (N.D. Cal.)
• O’Nan v. Databricks, Inc., Mosaic ML, No. 3:23-cv-01451 (N.D. Cal.)
• Makkai v. Databricks, Inc., Mosaic ML, No. 3:24-cv-02653 (N.D. Cal.)
• Nazemian v. NVIDIA Corp., No. 3:23-cv-01454 (N.D. Cal.)
• Dubus v. NVIDIA Corp., No. 4:24-cv-02655 (N.D. Cal.)
• Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 3:23-cv-03417 (N.D. Cal.)
• Chabon v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 3:23-cv-04663 (N.D. Cal.)
• Huckabee v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 3:23-cv-06663 (N.D. Cal.)
• Farnworth v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 3:23-cv-06893 (N.D. Cal.)
• J.L. v. Alphabet Inc., No. 3:23-cv-03440-LB (N.D. Cal.) (social media posts)
• In re OpenAI ChatGPT Litigation (transferred to Southern District of New York on April 3, 2025)
  • Tremblay v. OpenAI, Inc., No. 3:23-cv-03223 (N.D. Cal.)
  • Silverman v. OpenAI, Inc., No. 3:23-cv-03223 (N.D. Cal.)
  • Chabon v. OpenAI Inc., No. 3:23-cv-04625 (N.D. Cal.)

New York

• Authors Guild v. OpenAI & Microsoft, No. 1:23-cv-8292 (S.D.N.Y.)
• Alter v. OpenAI & Microsoft, No. 1:23-cv-10211 (S.D.N.Y.)
• Basbanes v. Microsoft Corp., OpenAI, No. 1:24-cv-00084 (S.D.N.Y.)
• Huckabee v. Bloomberg, No. 1:23-cv-11195 (S.D.N.Y.)

Consolidated Cases

The following cases have been consolidated thus far:

• OpenAI cases (S.D.N.Y.): Authors Guild v. Open AI & Microsoft Corp.; Alter v. OpenAI & Microsoft Corp.; Basbanes v. Microsoft Corp., OpenAI; New York Times Co. v. Microsoft Corp.; Raw Story Media v. OpenAI; Intercept Media v. OpenAI; Daily News v. Microsoft Corp.; Center for Investigative Reporting v. OpenAI; Tremblay v. OpenAI; Silverman v. OpenAI; Chabon v. OpenAI; Millette v. OpenAI
• Meta cases (N.D. Cal.): Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Inc.; Chabon v. Meta Platforms, Inc.; Huckabee v. Meta Platforms, Inc.; Farnworth v. Meta Platforms, Inc.
• Google cases (N.D. Cal.): J.L. v. Alphabet Inc.; Zhang v. Google, Alphabet (visual artworks)
• Databricks cases (N.D. Cal.): O’Nan v. Databricks, Inc., Mosaic ML; Makkai v. Databricks, Inc., Mosaic ML
• NVIDIA cases (N.D. Cal.): Nazemian v. NVIDIA Corp.; Dubus v. NVIDIA Corp.

The best course of action is to maintain your membership with the Authors Guild or another organization who does a good job of communicating the rights of its author members. National media may also cover advancements in these lawsuits.

What Can I Do While I Wait for the Disposition of the Lawsuits?

• The best course of action is to maintain your membership with the Authors Guild or another organization who does a good job of communicating the rights of its author members. National media may also cover advancements in these lawsuits.
• Additional information about what to do if your books are included in a dataset used for training is available here.
• Make sure that the copyright page of your ebook contains a “no AI training clause.” This simple action may help establish blatant violations in the future. Ask your publisher to do so for all new books and when there is a new printing or edition of a previously published book.
• You can also make sure that your next publishing contract between you and a publisher stipulates no AI training without your explicit consent.
• Lastly, you should get up to speed on new legal licensing initiatives that give you control over end uses and compensation. Once authors start winning these suits there will be an increase in demand for licensed content.