{"id":161338,"date":"2025-11-26T21:19:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T21:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/161338\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T21:19:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T21:19:12","slug":"openai-loses-discovery-battle-cedes-ground-to-authors-in-ai-lawsuits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/161338\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenAI Loses Discovery Battle, Cedes Ground to Authors in AI Lawsuits"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOpenAI<\/a> has lost a key discovery battle over internal communications related to the startup deleting two huge datasets of pirated books, a development that further tilts the scales in favor of authors suing the company.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo rewind, authors and publishers have gained access to Slack messages between OpenAI\u2019s employees discussing the erasure of the datasets, named \u201cbooks 1 and books 2.\u201d But the court held off on whether plaintiffs should get other communications that the company argued were protected by attorney-client privilege.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a controversial decision that was appealed by OpenAI on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Ona Wang found that OpenAI must hand over documents revealing the company\u2019s motivations for deleting the datasets. OpenAI\u2019s in-house legal team will be deposed.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt stake: Billions of dollars and, potentially, OpenAI\u2019s defense in the case. The communications could help prove what\u2019s known as \u201cwillful\u201d infringement, which triggers significantly higher damages of $150,000 per work. And if it\u2019s found that the company destroyed the evidence with potential litigation in mind, the court could direct juries in later trials to assume it would\u2019ve been unfavorable for OpenAI.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe discovery ruling bolsters what\u2019s increasingly looking like a winning argument over the practice of pirating books from shadow libraries. That theory has changed over the course of AI<\/a> litigation. At first, lawyers for the authors directly connected the piracy to OpenAI\u2019s training of its models under a single umbrella. But later, they separated the theories and alleged that the distinct act of illegally downloading the works, regardless of whether they were used, constitutes copyright infringement.<\/p>\n

\n\tImportant to note: the one win for authors in another AI copyright case, this one initiated by Andrea Bartz against Anthropic, related to the company illegally downloading millions of books and storing them in a central library. The decision heavily leaned in favor of Anthropic, but the court greenlit the theory for trial. \u201cThat Anthropic later bought a copy of a book it earlier stole off the internet will not absolve it of liability for the theft,\u201d wrote U.S. District Judge William Alsup. After the ruling, Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\n\tLast year, a lawyer for OpenAI said that the \u201cbooks 1\u201d and \u201cbooks 2\u201d datasets weren\u2019t being used for training purposes and that they were deleted in 2022 \u201cdue to their non-use.\u201d Counsel representing authors and publishers called foul play.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe issue has been a major battleground in discovery. At first, OpenAI claimed attorney-client privilege but later said that it would turn over some information. Then, it moved to withdraw its representation that the datasets were deleted due to nonuse and said that all evidence on the erasure is privileged.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the ruling, the court found that most of the communications aren\u2019t shielded from discovery. This includes Slack messages between OpenAI employees in a channels called \u201cproject-clear\u201d and \u201cexcise-libgen,\u201d where they discussed deleting the datasets.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOpenAI has waived privilege by making a moving target of its privilege assertions,\u201d Wang wrote. She added, \u201cOpenAI has gone back-and-forth on whether \u2018non-use\u2019 as a \u2018reason\u2019 for the deletion of Books1 and Books2 is privileged at all. OpenAI cannot state a \u2018reason\u2019 (which implies it is not privileged) and then later assert that the \u2018reason\u2019 is privileged to avoid discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe upshot in OpenAI\u2019s messy legal maneuvering: The company effectively opened the door to the privileged material when it disclosed a reason for the deletion of the dataset.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo stave off a finding of \u201cwillful\u201d infringement, it\u2019ll have to show a good faith belief in the innocence of its action. The company faces an uphill battle on that issue, with the court stressing a \u201cfundamental conflict\u201d in circumstances when a defendant blocks discovery into communications over its state of mind by asserting attorney-client privilege.<\/p>\n

\n\tOpenAI continues to maintain that it didn\u2019t willfully infringe on any copyrighted material. On Wednesday, it moved to pause enforcement of discovery obligations. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OpenAI has lost a key discovery battle over internal communications related to the startup deleting two huge datasets…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,1682,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-161338","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-openai","14":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}