Executive summary
The rapid growth of generative AI including popular models such as ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot and Google’s Gemini (formerly Bard) have brought to fore many new legal issues relating to ownership, subsistence and infringement of copyright law.
At the heart of the discourse is the reinterpretation of copyright principles in the age of AI-generated content. Long established principles about subsistence, authorship and ownership of content are being re-examined in the wake of the explosion of AI generated work being created and the demand from businesses who want to secure the profitability gains from using generative AI without losing control of any IP rights associated with content which may be in whole or in part created using AI tools.
It is unsurprising that the US Courts have led the way in AI & copyright litigation to date given most of the leading AI technology providers are based there, but we are starting to see similar claims being issued elsewhere including before UK and European Courts.
These are some of the issues emerging from the adoption and use of generative AI, an area that is likely to be increasingly complicated by newer and more advanced technologies, and the implementation of the EU AI Act.
Working with our CMS colleagues across UK, Europe and beyond, we have built a copyright + AI case tracker providing accessible, easily digestible case summaries, updated regularly, covering the most topical case law in the area of AI and copyright. Each case summary in this copyright + AI tracker provides details of the relevant litigation, including summaries of each party’s arguments and the final judgment, in order to develop an understanding of this new developing landscape of case law.
There are now over 40 copyright claims being litigated in the US including most recently the complaint filed by the film studios (Disney and NBC Universal) against Mid Journey, as well as pending claims between the New York Times and OpenAI, the Dow Jones and Perplexity, and Getty and Stability AI. In June 2025, we saw the first decision from the US in the case involving Anthropic. The Californian Court ruled that Anthropic’s use of books to train its AI model Claude did not infringe US copyright law – but that it does need to face trial over its use of pirated copyright materials.
If you become aware of a case which we have not yet summarised, please do let us know by emailing [email protected]
