Mealey's Artificial Intelligence : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Artificial Intelligence

September 24, 2024
Cigna, Insureds Debate ERISA, UCL Impact On AI Claims Denial Case

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Individuals allegedly denied coverage by an artificial intelligence algorithm employed by Employee Retirement Income Security Act insurer Cigna Corp. debated whether the program’s use violated plan terms on how the company would review claims, preemption and whether California unfair competition law claims were properly pleaded in briefing over a motion to dismiss a third amended complaint.
September 20, 2024
Social Media User: California AI Political Deepfake Laws Are Unconstitutional

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Two newly enacted laws requiring removal or labeling of artificial intelligence-created and other parody and fake content are unconstitutional and violate First Amendment protections on political satire, a man alleges in a complaint filed the same day California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the legislation into law.
September 18, 2024
Judge Consolidates Suits By Journalists Challenging AI, Denies Motions To Compel

NEW YORK — In a six-page order addressing more than 20 outstanding motions and letter briefs in six artificial intelligence copyright cases, a federal judge in New York consolidated two suits brought by news entities and others, granted motions to set and extend deadlines and otherwise generally denied requests to compel certain evidence, including a request that The New York Times Co. produce evidence demonstrating that its stories were original works.
September 18, 2024
DOD Must Explain FOIA Exemption In AI Usage Case, Judge Says

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Department of Defense (DOD) has not adequately explained how a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by a journalist seeking information about the use of artificial intelligence implicates the critical infrastructure exemption on which it relies for withholding 5,000 pages of otherwise responsive documents, a federal judge in the District of Columbia said in denying without prejudice cross-motions for summary judgment.
September 17, 2024
Parties To Music Publishers’ AI Suit Brief Injunction, Motion To Dismiss

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Music publishers said an artificial intelligence company’s motion to dismiss is “rife with misdirection” and urged a court to impose a narrow preliminary injunction that would protect their rights while not unduly imposing restrictions on the company. But in its own briefing, Anthropic PBC said there is no evidence that its AI ever produced copyrighted works as portrayed by the plaintiffs and that there is certainly no evidence that its newest models would do so while urging the court to dismiss ancillary claims it says have not fared well in similar cases.
September 17, 2024
AI Copyright Plaintiffs Want Midjourney’s Trade Dress Clarification Reply Stricken

SAN FRANCISCO — Plaintiff artists asked a federal judge in California to strike a reply brief that artificial intelligence creator Midjourney Inc. filed in support of its motion for clarification about what “concrete elements” the judge saw in the plaintiffs’ trade dress claim, with the artists saying local rules do not permit such a filing.
September 16, 2024
Parties To GitHub AI Suit Involving DMCA Ruling Brief Need For Immediate Appeal

OAKLAND, Calif. — Plaintiffs in an artificial intelligence copyright suit involving code posted to online coding repository GitHub and related defendants wrapped briefing over whether a federal judge in California’s ruling requiring identicality under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) warrants interlocutory appeal of a federal California judge’s ruling.
September 16, 2024
Google, Author Wrap Briefing On Dismissal Of Trimmed AI Copyright Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — An author and Google LLC grappled in briefing on a motion to dismiss filed in a federal court in California, with the woman saying her amended complaint sufficiently alleges that the company illegally took and used her copyrighted work to train artificial intelligence. However, Google responded by saying that while the second amended complaint appears to try to strip away irrelevant allegations, it only serves to point out the ongoing problems with the Copyright Act claims.
September 12, 2024
Government Seeks Rehearing After Appeals Court Revives AI Image Program Vendor’s Suit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A divided Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel erred in concluding that courts have jurisdiction over a suit brought by a commercial vender of an artificial intelligence image and geospatial data program and in holding that the vender constituted an interested party despite never bidding on the project, the government tells the court in a petition for rehearing.
September 11, 2024
AI Copyright Plaintiffs Oppose Midjourney’s Request For Trade Dress Clarification

SAN FRANCISCO — Plaintiffs in an artificial intelligence image copyright suit told a court its ruling on several motions to dismiss already rejected AI creator Midjourney Inc.’s arguments, leaving nothing to address in the company’s motion for the court to clarify what “concrete elements” are in the plaintiffs’ trade dress.
September 10, 2024
Judge Allows Experts’ Opinions On LLMs In Alexa Patent Case

RICHMOND, Va. — An expert’s opinions on the availability of large language models (LLMs) when Amazon.com first released its Alexa assistant product are admissible, a federal judge in Virginia said in denying three motions to exclude under Daubert in a patent infringement lawsuit.
September 09, 2024
California Poised To Give Celebrity Beneficiaries Protections From AI

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Celebrity beneficiaries are one step closer to having a cause of action for unauthorized artificial intelligence reproductions after both houses of the California Legislature passed a measure seeking to update the so-called “expressive works” exemption to the right of publicity.
September 09, 2024
Criminal Indictment: Man Used AI Music To Steal $10M From Streaming Services

NEW YORK — A man stole approximately $10 million in royalty payments from music streaming services through the use of billions of streams created by registering thousands of bot accounts and directing them to stream hundreds of thousands of artificial intelligence-created songs, according to an indictment filed in a federal court in New York.
September 06, 2024
Concurring 11th Circuit Judge: AI May Have Role In Word, Phrase Interpretation

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Despite some variability in their answers, artificial intelligences and large language models (LLMs) have a role to play in interpreting words and phrases and “may well serve a valuable auxiliary role as we aim to triangulate ordinary meaning,” an 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals judge said in a Sept. 5 concurrence to an opinion affirming a two-level sentencing enhancement for physical restraint during an armed robbery case.
September 04, 2024
California Assembly, Senate Pass Legislation Imposing Oversight Of AI Models

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California appears poised to enact legislation imposing safety guiderails on artificial intelligence models after a bill that underwent a series of amendments but largely breezed through committees passed the California Senate. The vote sends the legislation to Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign.
September 03, 2024
AI-Crafted Closing Argument Can’t Free Fugees Rapper From Lobbying Law Conviction

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Artificial intelligence used in organizing a criminal case and crafting closing arguments attributed a song to the wrong artist, but a former rapper with the band Fugees accused of lobbying violations never explains how such an error prejudiced him or otherwise resulted in his conviction, a federal judge in the District of Columbia said Aug. 30 in denying a motion for a new trial.
August 20, 2024
COMMENTARY: You Can’t Spell Claim Construction Without AI

By Jonah Mitchell and Charlie Rieder
August 30, 2024
Judge Relates Suits Over YouTube Video AI Training

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California related two California unfair competition law (UCL) cases brought by a man who claims companies illegally downloaded and transcribed YouTube videos for use in training their artificial intelligences.
August 29, 2024
Judge Denies Motion To Dismiss SEC’s ‘Pyramid Scheme’ Claims Against AI Company

ORLANDO, Fla. — A federal judge in Florida denied an artificial intelligence startup and its founder’s motion to dismiss claims brought against them by the Securities and Exchange Commission, finding that the SEC adequately alleged that the company and its founder lured investors with false promises of early access to profits from an AI “ecosystem.”
August 29, 2024
Dialysis Provider Apprises Court Of Potential AI Discovery Concerns

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A dialysis center says a health plan may be employing artificial intelligence in discovery without consultation or permission, telling the federal judge in Ohio overseeing its Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) case in a joint status report that the plan’s production of hundreds of thousands of documents is moving along at a “glacial” pace without any apparent intent to meet obligations in a stipulation. In their portion of the report, the health plan defendants say they disclosed their intent to use a “computer-assisted platform,” that even evidence identified by such tools requires validation and that perceived problems with production ignore those difficulties and the likelihood that deadlines will be met.
August 29, 2024
AI Copyright Suit Should Stay In Delaware, Getty Images Argues

WILMINGTON, Del. — An artificial intelligence image copyright lawsuit lacks any connection to the defendants’ preferred forum of California, and in the event the suit is sent out west, plaintiff Getty Images [US] Inc. would oppose consolidation with pending litigation, rendering any potential efficiencies “illusory,” Getty says in a brief in opposition to a renewed motion to transfer filed in Delaware federal court.
August 28, 2024
Judge Warns Against AI Use But Adopts Ruling Allowing Pro Se Action

NEW YORK — Two credit reporting companies must face a pro se action after a New York federal judge overruled objections to a report and recommendation, but expressed concern about the plaintiff’s potential use of artificial intelligence in briefing and reiterated that future instances of its use could result in sanctions.
August 27, 2024
Judge Sets Briefing Over ChatGPT-Created ‘Gobbledygook’ Admission In Stock Case

NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York overseeing a “pump and dump” stock case on Aug. 26 set deadlines for a pretrial motion, saying he hopes for prompt resolution of a dispute in which the government portrayed some of the evidence a man hopes to introduce under the hearsay exception as ChatGPT-created “gobbledygook.”
August 23, 2024
Justice Department Sues Rental Market Software Company Over Antitrust Violations

GREENSBORO, N.C. — The U.S. Department of Justice and attorneys general of eight states on Aug. 23 filed an antitrust suit against RealPage Inc., a commercial revenue management software company, alleging that RealPage uses nonpublic information obtained from landlords and runs the information through its algorithmic software to align pricing, thereby impeding the free market process.
August 21, 2024
Anthropic Faces 1st AI Copyright Suit From Authors

SAN FRANCISCO — Three authors filed a class action against Anthropic PBC in a California federal court claiming that the company’s business model consists of “largescale theft” of “hundreds of thousands of copyrighted books” so that it can train its artificial intelligence.