AI & Law

🇺🇸⚖️Britannica and Merriam-Webster Sue OpenAI Over Copyright and Trademark Claims Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging “massive copyright infringement.” The publishers claim that nearly 100,000 copyrighted articles were scraped and used to train OpenAI’s large language models without permission. The complaint also alleges that OpenAI reproduces full or partial verbatim excerpts of their content in outputs and uses their materials within ChatGPT’s retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) processes. The lawsuit further claims violations of the Lanham Act, arguing that OpenAI attributes hallucinated or fabricated content to Britannica, potentially misleading users. According to the filing, ChatGPT generates responses that directly compete with publishers’ content, reducing traffic and revenue while raising concerns about the reliability of online information. This case adds to a growing number of lawsuits against OpenAI, including claims brought by The New York Times and Ziff Davis, as well as multiple newspapers in the U.S. and Canada. A separate lawsuit filed by Britannica against Perplexity on similar grounds remains pending. #Copyright#AIRegulation#AIGovernance#IPLaw#GenerativeAI#Litigation#AIethics

🇺🇸U.S. Department of Labor Launches Federal AI Literacy Framework The U.S. Department of Labor has introduced the United States’ first federal-level AI literacy framework, a voluntary initiative aimed at guiding AI literacy programs across government, the public workforce, and education systems. The framework defines AI literacy as a foundational set of competencies enabling responsible use and evaluation of AI technologies, with a primary focus on generative AI as a core workplace tool. It is intended as a baseline understanding rather than specialized training for AI developers. Designed for broad application, the framework encourages tailored programs for different roles and contexts. It outlines benefits for workers (independent skill-building and adaptation to AI-enabled environments), employers (responsible deployment and workforce transition), and education providers (curriculum design and competency assessment). Although nonbinding, it is expected to influence private-sector training initiatives in the U.S. and abroad. The document emphasizes that AI literacy requirements will evolve with technological change, labor market developments, and implementation feedback. #AIRegulation#AILiteracy#GenerativeAI#PublicPolicy

🇺🇸⚖️SDNY: AI-Generated Client Documents Not Covered by Privilege Judge Jed Rakoff of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has ruled that documents created by defendant Bradley Heppner using Anthropic’s Claude and later sent to his lawyer were not protected by attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine. Heppner had generated reports outlining defense strategy after receiving a grand jury subpoena, acting on his own initiative rather than at counsel’s direction. Federal agents seized about 31 such documents from his devices following his arrest on securities and wire fraud charges. The court held that privilege did not apply because the communications were shared with a third-party AI tool that did not ensure confidentiality. It also rejected work product protection, finding the materials were not prepared by or at the direction of legal counsel and did not reflect counsel’s legal strategy. The AI provider’s disclaimer that users should not expect confidentiality further undermined the claim. The ruling applies traditional privilege principles to generative AI use in legal preparation. #AIandLaw#GenerativeAI#LegalEthics

🇪🇺European Parliament Pushes New Copyright Safeguards for AI The European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs has approved an own-initiative report proposing new measures to strengthen copyright protection in the context of generative AI. The proposals include mandatory transparency obligations on training data practices for all generative AI systems placed on the EU market. MEPs also call for remuneration mechanisms for rightsholders and the development of voluntary, sector-specific collective licensing agreements. The report is not legally binding but signals political direction and will be submitted for a vote by the full Parliament during the March plenary session. #AIandCopyright#EUAI#GenerativeAI#CopyrightLaw#AIRegulation

📖Copyright Risk in Production LLMs: New Evidence of Text Extraction A new paper, “Extracting books from production language models,” examines whether copyrighted training data can be extracted from closed, production-grade LLMs despite deployed safety measures. The authors test a two-phase method: an initial feasibility probe (sometimes using Best-of-N jailbreaks) followed by iterative continuation prompts, on Claude 3.7 Sonnet, GPT-4.1, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and Grok 3. Extraction success is measured using an nv-recall metric based on longest common substrings. The study finds that extraction remains possible. For Gemini 2.5 Pro and Grok 3, no jailbreak was required to extract substantial portions of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone" (nv-recall 76.8% and 70.3%). Claude 3.7 Sonnet and GPT-4.1 required jailbreaks; in some cases, jailbroken Claude produced near-verbatim outputs of entire books (nv-recall 95.8%). GPT-4.1 showed lower extraction success and eventually refused to continue after many attempts. The authors conclude that memorization and extractability of in-copyright text persist as risks in production LLMs, even with model- and system-level safeguards, keeping unresolved copyright and compliance questions squarely in scope. #AI#Copyright#LLMs#AIRegulation#GenerativeAI#IP

🇨🇦AI Defamation Risk: Canadian Artist Prepares Lawsuit After Google Error Canadian musician Ashley MacIsaac says a Google AI-generated summary falsely labeled him a convicted sex offender, leading a concert venue to cancel his show. MacIsaac told the Canadian Press he believes the system confused him with another individual in Canada who has similar charges, but the error directly cost him income and harmed his reputation. MacIsaac is now preparing to sue Google, arguing that the misinformation amounts to defamation and created real-world risks, including potential issues at border controls. He stated that AI companies must be held accountable for what their systems publish and what harms they can reasonably prevent, noting that he is unlikely to be the last person affected by such errors. The incident underscores how AI-generated summaries can produce high-impact false statements about individuals, with immediate legal, economic, and personal consequences, even when no human editorial judgment is involved. #AI#AIDefamation#Liability#GenerativeAI#ReputationRisk

⚖️Lawsuit Targets Character.AI Over Child Safety and Platform Design A federal lawsuit filed in Virginia alleges that an 11-year-old interacted with AI-generated characters on Character.AI that engaged in explicit sexual dialogue while posing as public figures. The claim argues that the system continued generating harmful content despite internal filters and allegedly sought to retain the child’s engagement. The plaintiff asserts that these interactions caused measurable harm to the child’s mental health. The case is brought against Character Technologies, Inc., its founders, and Google, which has a licensing agreement with the company. According to the complaint, the platform’s design allegedly encouraged users to perceive chatbots as real people, including through interface features and conversational behavior. Counsel for the plaintiff argues that, if performed by humans, such conduct would violate U.S. state and federal laws on online child grooming. Character.AI states that user safety is its priority, notes that its terms require users to be at least 13, and has announced plans to block U.S. users under 18 from interacting with AI-generated characters. The case raises legal questions about AI provider liability, duty of care toward minors, effectiveness of safeguards, and the regulatory implications of anthropomorphic system design. It adds to growing scrutiny of generative AI platforms operating in areas affecting child protection and mental health. #AI#AIRegulation#ChildSafety#GenerativeAI

🇺🇸⚖️Authors File Industry-Wide Copyright Suit Against Major AI Developers Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist John Carreyrou and five other book authors have filed a federal copyright infringement lawsuit in the Northern District of California against Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Meta, xAI, and Perplexity AI. The plaintiffs opted out of Bartz v. Anthropic and brought a coordinated action alleging that their books were copied and used to train large language models without authorization. This filing brings the total number of AI-related copyright suits by authors to roughly 70. The complaint asserts a single claim of direct copyright infringement, including allegations of a “Shadow Library Strategy” used to source copyrighted texts. The authors explicitly declined to proceed as a class action, citing their right under the Copyright Act to seek individualized statutory damages, determined by a jury, for each defendant’s alleged infringement. The case is also the first copyright suit to target xAI, Elon Musk’s AI company. The plaintiffs are represented by Friedman Normand Friedland LLP and Stris & Maher LLP. While several other technology companies (including Microsoft, NVIDIA, Apple, Salesforce, and Bloomberg) are not named in this action, they are defendants in related author lawsuits. The filing underscores continued legal pressure on AI developers over training practices involving copyrighted works. #AICopyright#GenerativeAI

🇺🇸🎬Disney–OpenAI Deal Redraws the IP Boundary for Generative Video Disney announced a three-year licensing agreement with OpenAI, coupled with a $1B equity investment, granting Sora users access to more than 200 characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars. The deal allows video generation using iconic IP such as Mickey Mouse, Darth Vader, and the Avengers, with selected outputs distributed on Disney+. Disney will also deploy OpenAI’s APIs across its products and roll out ChatGPT internally as part of an enterprise-wide implementation. The agreement explicitly excludes talent likenesses and voices, narrowing the license to character IP and avoiding unresolved disputes around performers’ rights. On the same day, Disney issued a cease-and-desist letter to Google, alleging that its AI systems generate unauthorized Disney content at scale—highlighting a sharp contrast between licensed and unlicensed AI use of copyrighted material. This deal positions licensing, not fair use, as the operative model for high-value generative content. For OpenAI, it provides lawful access to globally recognized IPs; for Disney, it establishes contractual control over how its assets enter generative ecosystems while strengthening enforcement against competitors operating outside licensed frameworks. #AIandLaw#Copyright#GenerativeAI#IPLicensing#AIRegulation

🇩🇪German Court Rules Against OpenAI in a Copyright Case The 42nd Civil Chamber of the Munich Regional Court has ruled that OpenAI violated German copyright law by using song lyrics in the training of its large language models, according to Reuters. The company has been ordered to pay an undisclosed amount in damages for the unauthorized use of copyrighted material. This decision could shape future European standards on how AI developers handle copyrighted data in model training. As one of the first rulings of its kind in Europe, it underscores the growing legal scrutiny around data provenance, training transparency, and the boundaries of fair use in the development of generative AI systems. #AI#Law#Copyright#Ethics#OpenAI#Germany#AIGovernance#GenerativeAI

🇺🇸Apple Faces Class Action Over Alleged Use of Pirated Books to Train Apple Intelligence Apple Inc. is facing a class action lawsuit in California federal court, accused of using thousands of pirated books to train its generative AI model, Apple Intelligence. The suit was filed by neuroscientists Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen Macknik, professors at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, who claim their own copyrighted works were among the materials used without consent. The complaint alleges that Apple relied on “shadow libraries” of pirated books to train its system, including Champions of Illusion and Sleights of Mind. The filing notes that Apple’s market value surged by more than $200 billion the day after the AI’s launch: “the single most lucrative day in the company’s history.” The plaintiffs seek financial damages and a court order to stop the alleged misuse of their works. #AIlaw#Copyright#GenerativeAI#IP

🌐📖Collective Licensing for AI Era: RSL Launches New Rights Model Real Simple Licensing (RSL) has launched a nonprofit collective rights platform aimed at protecting online publishers and creators in the age of generative AI. Through the RSL Standard, the organization enables content owners to collectively negotiate fair compensation when their work is used to generate AI outputs, setting market-wide licensing terms. Modeled after organizations like ASCAP and BMI in the music industry, the RSL Collective introduces a unified rights framework for the digital era. For the first time, publishers and creators can pool rights into a single platform to establish fair market prices and simplify licensing for AI companies, ensuring they are not left out of the AI economy. #AIEthics#Copyright#RSL#GenerativeAI#ResponsibleAI