Twelve federal lawsuits are open right now. Each one asks if an AI company owes creators once its model has learned from their work. The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft. Disney and Universal are suing Midjourney.
AI Lately read the court filings and press coverage behind all twelve cases to build this tracker. One federal appeals court has ruled, and it ruled against the AI company. Eleven more cases are still waiting on a judge's answer.
Words on the Page: the Publishers
The New York Times sued Microsoft and OpenAI in the Southern District of New York, docket 1:23-cv-111951. It covers training ChatGPT and Bing's Copilot on the paper's own articles. That filing sits inside a bigger fight, a shared docket, 1:25-md-03143, that also holds the Authors Guild's class action over book training. The same judge, Sidney Stein, oversees both.
Both sides asked Stein for summary judgment in September. The Justice Department under Trump filed its own brief backing OpenAI, calling the training "extraordinarily" transformative1. Steven Lieberman, who speaks for the New York Daily News and seven other papers in the same docket, read the record differently. "The evidence revealed here for the first time shows that OpenAI and Microsoft knew that what they were doing was wrong," he said.
Briefing on the publishers' case runs through Nov. 2016. The books side of the docket finished its own briefing a week earlier, and a hearing date remains unscheduled for either track.
A separate book case against Meta is further along. Thirteen authors sued Meta in California, docket 3:23-cv-03417, over downloading their books from pirate libraries to train Llama.
Judge Vince Chhabria granted Meta partial summary judgment on fair use in June 20257. He denied the authors a quick appeal of the piracy question in July 2026. That ruling sends the fair-use issues to the Ninth Circuit together, after a final judgment. A claim over Meta's role sharing those pirated files on BitTorrent stays active, its hearing date still unscheduled.
The Labels Sue Too
Eight music publishers sued Anthropic over Claude's training on song lyrics. Concord Music Group and Universal Music Publishing Group are among them. The case moved from Tennessee to San Jose, docket 5:24-cv-03811, before Judge Eumi Lee.
Lee heard the publishers' and Anthropic's competing summary-judgment motions on Oct. 21 and took the case under review3. Matthew Oppenheim, the publishers' lawyer, argued the model's output only replaces human work. "It's not curing cancer, it's to create other lyrics," he told the court. "It couldn't do it if it didn't have the lyrics in the database".
Two more labels went a different way. Universal Music Group settled with Udio on Oct. 29, 2025, trading its lawsuit for a licensing deal. "These new agreements with Udio demonstrate our commitment to do what's right by our artists and songwriters, whether that means embracing new technologies," said Sir Lucian Grainge, the company's chairman and CEO12. Sony Music stayed in that fight and filed a second Udio suit of its own.
Suno kept its lawsuit too. Universal and Sony filed a second case against Suno in Boston on Sept. 18, covering 60,202 more recordings tied to Suno's newest model11.
3 of 12 open AI copyright suits are fully argued and waiting on a judge
The twelve cases this tracker follows, grouped by their procedural stage, as of Oct. 31, 2026
Each cube is one case; the accent cubes are the cases waiting on a summary-judgment ruling, and the gray and blue cubes are cases already ruled on, still in discovery, narrowed by a settlement, or waiting on a motion to dismiss.
Sources: Insurance Journal [1]; Nieman Lab [2]; AI Musicpreneur [3]; ChatGPT Is Eating The World [7]; AI Lawsuit Tracker [8]; CBR [9]; Music Business Worldwide [11]; Music Business Worldwide [12]; Inner City Press [13]; The Bookseller [14]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Awaiting a fair-use ruling | 3 |
| Still in discovery | 4 |
| Narrowed by a licensing deal | 2 |
| Ruled on, now on appeal or remand | 2 |
| Motion to dismiss pending | 1 |
| Whole | 12 |
Pictures Borrowed to Train the Models
Getty Images dropped its Delaware suit against Stability AI last year and refiled in California5. A parallel United Kingdom case gave Getty only a narrow trademark win and rejected its claim6. Craig Peters, Getty's CEO, framed the stakes plainly. "We did not grant Stability AI permission to use millions of images owned and/or represented by Getty Images to train their Stable Diffusion model which was made commercially available starting in August of 2022," he said4.
Visual artists including Sarah Andersen and Karla Ortiz are still suing Stability AI, Midjourney, DeviantArt and Runway. Their case has yet to certify a class. A hearing on class status and summary judgment, moved once already, now sits on Judge William Orrick's calendar for Feb. 17, 20278.
Disney and Universal sued Midjourney too, and Warner Bros.' own suit against the same company folded into that docket. Kim Harris, NBCUniversal's top lawyer, named the harm in June 2025. "We are bringing this action today to protect the hard work of all the artists whose work entertains and inspires us and the significant investment we make in our content," she said. "Theft is theft regardless of the technology used, and this action involves blatant infringement of our copyrights"9.
Discovery in that case closes Nov. 9, and the deadline to file further motions follows on Nov. 2310.
Search Engines on Trial
Dow Jones and the New York Post sued Perplexity in 2024. The suit targets its answer engine's use of Wall Street Journal and Post reporting. A judge ordered Perplexity's founders to turn over personal email accounts in July, after finding they used those accounts for company business13. The case returns to court for a pretrial conference on Dec. 14.
Encyclopaedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster sued the same company in 2025, arguing its answers often repeat Britannica's own writing. "Perplexity claims to be the 'world's first answer engine' but the answers they provide to consumers are often Britannica's answers," said Jorge Cauz, the Britannica Group's CEO14. A ruling on Perplexity's motion to dismiss that case is still pending.
The Third Circuit's Sept. 29 ruling sits between two publisher deadlines 7 weeks apart
Dated rulings and the next scheduled steps across the tracker's twelve cases, Sept. 18 to Feb. 17, 2027
Each pin is one dated event; the accent pins are rulings already handed down, and the gray pins are dates still ahead on a court's calendar.
Sources: Insurance Journal [1]; Nieman Lab [2]; AI Musicpreneur [3]; AI Lawsuit Tracker [8]; Lawsuit Signal [10]; Music Business Worldwide [11]; OpenAI [15]; Open Class Actions [16]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Sept. 18, 2026 | UMG, Sony sue Suno again. A second suit over 60,202 more recordings |
| Sept. 29, 2026 | 3rd Circuit rules for TR. Affirms Thomson Reuters's win over ROSS Intelligence |
| Oct. 21, 2026 | Anthropic lyrics hearing. Concord Music Group and other publishers v. Anthropic |
| Oct. 30, 2026 | OpenAI fair-use roundup. Publishes briefs backing its side of the Times case |
| Nov. 9, 2026 | Midjourney discovery end. Expert discovery closes in Disney/Universal's case |
| Nov. 20, 2026 | NYT-OpenAI briefing ends. Summary-judgment briefing closes against Microsoft too |
| Dec. 14, 2026 | Perplexity pretrial date. Dow Jones and the New York Post's case reconvenes |
| Feb. 17, 2027 | Andersen class hearing. Class status and summary judgment, Stability AI and Midjourney |
The One Ruling That Counts So Far
Only one of these twelve cases has reached a federal appeals court. Thomson Reuters sued ROSS Intelligence years ago, arguing the startup trained a rival legal-research tool on Westlaw's own headnotes. A trial judge sided with Thomson Reuters in 2025, and the Third Circuit affirmed that ruling on Sept. 292.
It was the first federal appeals word on AI training and fair use. Judge Tamika Montgomery-Reeves wrote for the panel: "The undisputed evidence reflects that Thomson Reuters's materials possess a creative spark, and ROSS aspired to be a direct competitor".
That outcome cuts against district judges who called similar training "highly transformative" in the Meta and Anthropic book cases a year earlier. The difference, legal filings argue, is ROSS built a product meant to replace Westlaw directly.
A chatbot answering general questions competes with a publisher less squarely, the AI companies argue. OpenAI made that same argument in its own words on Oct. 30, publishing excerpts from a dozen outside briefs backing its position. "The New York Times' lawsuit, meanwhile, asks everyone to ignore a half century of legal history and progress, and toss aside the longstanding principle of fair use in their own narrow pursuit of an undeserved payday," the company wrote15.
Eleven open cases now sit between those two readings of one appeals ruling. Three of them, the Times, the Authors Guild and the music publishers, are fully argued and waiting on a judge. One more, the authors' suit against Meta, already carries a ruling and keeps moving anyway, on a narrower claim.
Two labels settled and narrowed their fight to one holdout apiece. Four cases sit in discovery, and one waits on a motion to dismiss.
What to Do
Track a case by its docket number ahead of a company's press release. A docket tells you the real claim, the judge, and the next date, where a release tells you only the side that wrote it.
Watch the market-harm argument closest. The Third Circuit's ruling turned on ROSS competing directly with Westlaw. Any case where the AI product replaces the plaintiff's own product carries that same risk. Learning from a work is different from replacing it, and a court just punished the second.
By the Numbers
- 12: the open federal AI copyright suits this tracker follows, from eight publishers, studios and record labels13911.
- $9 billion: the ceiling on statutory damages Universal and Sony are seeking from Suno over 60,202 recordings, at $150,000 each11.
- 1: the number of these twelve cases that has reached a federal appeals ruling, Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence2.
- 2: labels that settled and licensed instead of suing, Warner Music with Suno and Universal with Udio12.
- Nov. 20: the date summary-judgment briefing closes in the Times' case against OpenAI and Microsoft16.
- Feb. 17, 2027: the moved hearing on class status in the artists' case against Stability AI and Midjourney8.
What to Watch
Watch Judge Lee's ruling in the Anthropic lyrics case, the next fair-use decision expected after the Third Circuit's. Nov. 20 brings the Times briefing to a close. Dec. 14 brings the Perplexity pretrial conference. Those are the two dates most likely to move a publisher's case forward before the year ends.
Sources
- Insurance Journal Staff, "NY Times, Daily News Reveal More Unredacted Evidence Against OpenAI, Microsoft," Insurance Journal, Sept. 22, 2026, https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2026/09/22/885622.htm
- Nieman Lab Staff, "Federal Appeals Court Upholds Thomson Reuters' Landmark AI Copyright Win," Nieman Lab, Sept. 30, 2026, https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/09/federal-appeals-court-upholds-thomson-reuters-landmark-ai-copyright-win/
- AI Musicpreneur Staff, "Anthropic Lyrics Lawsuit: Fair Use Hearing, No Ruling Yet," AI Musicpreneur, Oct. 21, 2026, https://www.aimusicpreneur.com/ai-music-news/concord-anthropic-fair-use-summary-judgment-hearing-october-2026/
- Fortune Staff, "Getty Images CEO: Respecting fair use rules won't prevent AI from curing cancer," Fortune, Dec. 2, 2024, https://fortune.com/2024/12/02/getty-images-ceo-respecting-fair-use-rules-wont-prevent-ai-from-curing-cancer-tech-law/
- Bloomberg Law Staff, "Getty drops Stability AI copyright suit, refiles in California," Bloomberg Law, Aug. 14, 2025, https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/getty-drops-stability-ai-copyright-suit-refiles-in-california
- Mishcon de Reya, "Getty Images v Stability AI: unpacking the High Court's judgment," Mishcon de Reya, Nov. 6, 2025, https://www.mishcon.com/news/getty-images-v-stability-ai-unpacking-the-high-courts-judgment
- ChatGPT Is Eating The World, "Judge Chhabria denies Kadrey book authors' motion to seek an interlocutory appeal," ChatGPT Is Eating The World, July 8, 2026, https://chatgptiseatingtheworld.com/2026/07/08/judge-chhabria-denies-kadrey-book-authors-motion-to-seek-an-interlocutory-appeal-of-downloading-part-of-ruling-in-fair-use-decision/
- AI Lawsuit Tracker, "Andersen v. Stability AI Ltd.: Case Status," AI Lawsuit Tracker, Oct. 12, 2026, https://ailawsuittracker.com/cases/andersen-v-stability-ai-ltd-3-23-cv-00201/
- CBR Staff, "'This Is Theft': Disney and Universal Sue AI Company Midjourney for Copyright Infringement," CBR, June 11, 2025, https://www.cbr.com/disney-universal-sue-midjourney/
- Lawsuit Signal, "Disney/Universal v. Midjourney: case schedule," Lawsuit Signal, Oct. 20, 2026, https://lawsuitsignal.com/disney-midjourney-lawsuit/
- Music Business Worldwide, "Universal and Sony sue Suno for a second time, claiming platform's v6 models are 'the fruit of the same poisoned tree,'" Music Business Worldwide, Sept. 19, 2026, https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/universal-and-sony-sue-suno-for-a-second-time-claiming-platforms-v6-models-are-the-fruit-of-the-same-poisoned-tree/
- Music Business Worldwide, "Universal Music settles Udio lawsuit, strikes deal for licensed AI music platform," Music Business Worldwide, Oct. 29, 2025, https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/universal-music-settles-udio-lawsuit-strikes-deal-for-licensed-ai-music-platform/
- Inner City Press, "SDNY court proceeding, Dow Jones & Co. v. Perplexity AI," Inner City Press, July 9, 2026, https://www.innercitypress.com/sdny190bfaillaperplexityaidjicp070926.html
- The Bookseller Staff, "Encyclopaedia Britannica publisher suing AI company Perplexity over 'content copying,'" The Bookseller, Sept. 12, 2025, https://www.thebookseller.com/news/encyclopaedia-britannica-publisher-suing-ai-company-perplexity-over-content-copying
- OpenAI, "Fair use benefits everyone," OpenAI, Oct. 30, 2026, https://openai.com/index/fair-use-benefits-everyone/
- Open Class Actions, "New York Times vs. OpenAI and Microsoft: Where the Lawsuit Stands," Open Class Actions, Oct. 24, 2026, https://openclassactions.com/news/new-york-times-openai-microsoft-copyright-lawsuit.php
