Overview
- U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein denied OpenAI’s bid to strike the authors’ separate “download and reproduction” theory tied to alleged shadow‑library copies.
- He also found a jury could deem certain ChatGPT outputs substantially similar to plaintiffs’ works, citing examples involving George R. R. Martin’s series.
- The court struck allegations about newer models—including GPT-4V, GPT-4.5, GPT-5 and derivatives—while keeping claims tied to earlier models such as GPT-3 through GPT-4o Mini and declining Microsoft’s effort to exclude GPT-4o and 4o Mini.
- Fair use was not decided in this round, with the judge expressly reserving that question for later stages of the case.
- Discovery is underway with orders to preserve output logs, metadata, and Slack channels, and statutory damages could reach up to $150,000 per work with plaintiffs needing to win on only one theory.