Artists file lawsuits against AI companies, achieving early court wins
Writers, illustrators and musicians are suing major AI developers for alleged copyright infringement, with several cases resulting in settlements or favorable rulings for creators.
A growing number of creators—including authors, cartoonists and musicians—have filed lawsuits against major artificial-intelligence firms, alleging that their works were used without permission to train generative models. The legal actions target companies such as Anthropic, Stability AI, Midjourney, DeviantArt, Runway, Meta, Google and Suno, and are based primarily on copyright claims and alleged violations of terms-of-service agreements.
Author Kirk Wallace Johnson discovered that his nonfiction books had been included in a dataset used to train a chatbot and subsequently engaged the law firm Susman Godfrey, which is also representing a class-action suit against Anthropic. Johnson said the experience left him feeling “angry” and “worried” about the impact on writers.
Illustrator Sarah Andersen, who created the webcomic Sarah’s Scribbles, joined a class action filed in early 2023 against Stability AI, Midjourney, DeviantArt and Runway, alleging unauthorized use of her images. Other visual artists have launched similar actions against the same firms.
Musician Sam Kogon leads a suit against Google’s Lyria AI music engine, arguing that the company breached its own YouTube terms of service by using uploaded content to train the model. Google has moved to dismiss the case, citing broad rights under its terms.
In a notable settlement, Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion and destroy a collection of pirated e-books after a court found it had infringed copyright by using the material to train its Claude model. A separate ruling on the company’s use of legally purchased books deemed the practice fair use because it was “transformative.”
Legal analysts and IP attorneys involved in the cases note that judges appear increasingly receptive to creators’ arguments, and public opinion is also shifting toward greater scrutiny of AI training practices. However, many artists warn that even successful lawsuits may not fully protect their livelihoods as AI technologies continue to evolve.