Law360 (September 8, 2025, 3:26 PM EDT) -- In the three years since ChatGPT burst onto the scene, artificial intelligence developers like OpenAI, Meta and Anthropic have faced dozens of lawsuits accusing them of infringing the intellectual property of authors, artists, news organizations and the like.

Those plaintiffs have initiated over 30 cases, some of which have been consolidated, in the U.S. against major developers of AI systems, with one common complaint: copyright infringement. They take issue with the use of copyrighted materials to train the AI models and allege that the outputs — or the writing, images and audio generated by these models — also are infringing.

In some ways, the litigation strikes at the heart of what makes us human, asking courts to weigh whether AI models can legally be used to create art that replaces human works. Some experts argue that the legal controversies will prove to be a significant test of copyright law, potentially more so than previous disruptive technologies like the internet.

"If you look at the longer term and the disruption we're going to get from driving the cost of creation down so much, this is the biggest disruption to copyright since the printing press," said James Grimmelmann, a professor at Cornell University's law and tech schools.

So far, all cases have been filed in New York, Massachusetts, Delaware and California. Several focus on AI models that generate text, such as the multidistrict litigation consolidated for pretrial matters in New York that includes plaintiffs like The New York Times Co., author Sarah Silverman and regional newspapers owned by private equity giant Alden Global Capital. The plaintiffs take issue with both the inputs and the outputs of OpenAI's models, saying both the training of the models and the materials they generate infringe copyrights.

There also are suits involving image-generating AI models. In California federal court, Disney and Universal have accused Midjourney Inc. of being a "copyright free-rider" that trains its models on works from franchises like "Star Wars" and "Shrek" and then rips off images associated with those universes.

Then there are the cases targeting AI developers whose models create AI-generated music. Sony Music Entertainment and a group of major record labels have sued startups Sono Inc. and Udio Inc. in New York federal court, asserting that those companies trained their models on copyrighted music and that the models spit out songs that sound very similar to that music.

As of July 2025, the courts have issued three major decisions in AI copyright infringement litigation. While a Delaware federal court has ruled that a tech startup infringed copyrighted material from Thomson Reuters' Westlaw platform, two judges in the Northern District of California have found that fair use allows AI developers Meta and Anthropic to use copyrighted materials in training.

But those decisions suggested that plaintiffs making piracy and market harm arguments could have some success in the courts. Since those came down, the authors who sued Anthropic have asked the federal court to approve a $1.5 billion settlement in the case, and experts have said licensing deals are helping fuel the growth of the AI economy. 

Attorneys caution that the web of litigation is still in its early days, and the courts aren't exactly in lockstep in their analyses. Grimmelmann said there's a "very deep division" between the fair use analyses in the three major decisions, one that higher courts are going to have to resolve.

It wouldn't be surprising if some of these fair use issues get to the U.S. Supreme Court, said Bryan Sterba, a partner at Lowenstein Sandler LLP.

"At some point, it's hard to imagine an issue this big, this transformative, not getting some look from the Supreme Court on one of these areas, but there's still so much of the record to be developed," Sterba told Law360.

Still, Evan Gourvitz, counsel at Ropes & Gray LLP, said copyright law has dealt with seismic technological changes in the past. It just might take time for the courts to sort out.

"I expect this to take three to five years to shake out, to let decisions percolate, and for legislation to get proposed and fought over as the main interest groups fight," Gourvitz said.

Here, Law360 explores the litigation landscape in a detailed tracker that will be updated as the disputes unfold.

--Additional reporting by Ivano Moreno, Bonnie Eslinger, Dorothy Atkins, Adam Lidgett, Hailey Konnath, Rae Ann Varona, Elliot Weld and Lauren Berg. Editing by Amy French.

Law360 is tracking U.S. cases that include at least one copyright claim in the complaint. Is there a new development in the litigation we're tracking or a new case we should follow? Please send tips to theresa.schliep@law360.com.

Update: This article has been updated to add details on the proposed settlement in the Anthropic litigation.

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