Authors Alliance – “Since 2022 we’ve seen 75 AI copyright lawsuits filed. The Bartz v. Anthropic settlement has been among the most high profile, and it has made many authors wonder if there are similar settlements on the horizon for the suits based on copying of books. This post surveys the current AI book lawsuits, several of which are on the verge of important decisions about whether, like Bartz, they can proceed as class action lawsuits representing the rights of millions of authors. Keep in mind that this space is changing rapidly, with new lawsuits filed very regularly. As we’ve noted elsewhere, Chat GPT is Eating the World has been an excellent resource for frequently updated maps of AI copyright lawsuits and case updates. The maps include both class actions and non-class lawsuits (e.g., The New York Times Co. v. Microsoft Corp. & OpenAI). Some lawsuits are focused on books and similar works, while other lawsuits are focused on images, music, and other non-text works. If you wish to closely follow one of the lawsuits we detail below, these excellent case updates are one avenue for you. You might also consider closely following the specific docket for a particular lawsuit, which will give you a detailed view of how it is progressing (we link to the Court Listener dockets for each of the lawsuits listed below). Before proceeding, here are a few additional observations to consider:

1. Given the sizable settlement of Bartz v. Anthropic, we are now seeing lawsuits structured around the winning arguments in Bartz, focused specifically on the acquisition of works (namely, did they come from shadow library websites like LibGen?) This will likely continue unless or until it yields different results for future plaintiffs.
2. These class action suits are primarily driven by the law firms, not the individual named plaintiffs, and so it’s not surprising to see the same law firms filing multiple suits. The Joseph Saveri law firm has filed at least seven Generative AI lawsuits. Eugene Turin of McGuire Law has filed several more.
3. With the exception of Bartz, the class actions detailed below are all putative class actions, not yet certified by the court. Certification is not automatic – we have written about class certification here and we also filed an amicus brief related to the Bartz class certification, one which detailed our concerns about the class certification in that case. Ultimately, the settlement meant that the certification was not challenged on appeal and thus our concerns were left unresolved.
4. Class certifications are significant and increase the financial risk to defendants. If the Bartz settlement comes to be viewed as a model (this is by no means a certainty), class certification may significantly increase the likelihood of a settlement. Right now, Anthropic does not appear to be hampered significantly by its settlement and has been widely reported to be raising a new round of funding at a substantially increased valuation. If this settlement ends up looking like a practical business decision (vs. the beginning of long, protracted, expensive and multifront litigation from emboldened plaintiffs), other AI companies may follow suit.
5. We can see that some authors are choosing to pursue lawsuits outside of the class action framework. As we noted in a previous post, John Carreyrou and several additional authors have opted out of the Bartz settlement and chosen to pursue a separate legal action against Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Meta, xAI, and Perplexity.

With those observations made, onto the class action lawsuits…”