Anything Engine Optimization The rolling record of the AI-search industry.

Reference

The Docket

The litigation and regulation on this record, case by case: the latest thing that happened, when, and the item it happened in. Courts and judges appear only as the record states them. The fuller running tally on this beat is kept by Chat GPT Is Eating the World, which is the source of most of these items; this page is the dated-ruling view of what the wire has published, and nothing it has not.

Dates ahead

Courts

Court cases: latest development, next date and the items behind each
CaseCourtLatest on the recordNextItems
Bartz v. Anthropic
Authors' class action — one suit on behalf of a whole group — over books used to train Claude; settled
not stated in the record; the appeal over lawyers' fees is to the Ninth Circuit federal appeals court
  • — The lawyers for the authors' group (class counsel) put the first payout at $2,203.56 per work, on or before Nov. 15. Combined payout statements went out Sept. 4, with 30 days for authors to dispute them. A second payment from a further $450 million is expected later.
  • — The settlement took effect Aug. 20, the day after the deadline to appeal passed; the two pending appeals challenge only attorneys' fee awards.
  • — Publishers' Coordination Counsel asked the Ninth Circuit federal appeals court to overturn the denial of its fee award; the payout schedule is unaffected.

First class payout, $2,203.56 per work, due on or before this date
Gilbert v. Anthropic
Author Daniel Gilbert, suing without a lawyer (pro se) after leaving (opting out of) the Bartz class, over his book Hacking World of Warcraft
not stated in the record
  • — Anthropic opposed Gilbert's request to throw out its fair-use counterclaim — the company's own claim back against him — arguing that his promise not to sue over training copies (a covenant not to sue) does not make it moot, or no longer needing a decision.
  • — Gilbert filed a promise not to sue (a covenant not to sue) over training or purchased copies, except copies sourced from piracy, and asked the court to narrow Anthropic's counterclaim — the company's own claim back against him.
  • — Anthropic's updated response to the suit (its amended answer) added a First Amendment (free speech) defense alongside fair use.
—
Shakespeare v. Anthropic
Authors over training data; amended to name Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann personally
federal court in the Northern District of California (N.D. Cal.), Judge Pitts
  • — Anthropic asked the court to throw out the authors' copyright claims (a motion to dismiss). It argues they are too old: the Copyright Act gives three years to sue after discovering the copying (the statute of limitations). These authors left the Bartz settlement group (opted out) to sue on their own.
  • — An updated complaint (the First Amended Complaint) adds plaintiffs, a claim that Amodei himself infringed (direct infringement), and a claim that Amodei and Mann helped others infringe (contributory infringement).
—
Cambronne v. Anthropic
Authors and publishers who left (opted out of) the Bartz settlement group, suing Anthropic on their own over book piracy
Judge Pitts; court not stated in the record
  • — Judge Pitts set the case schedule (a scheduling order), with trial in 2028. Requests for a ruling without a trial (summary judgment) that do not rely on expert witnesses are due May 13, 2027; expert-based requests follow on a separate date.

Deadline for requests in Cambronne v. Anthropic to decide the case without a trial (non-expert summary judgment motions)
Concord Music Group v. Anthropic
Music publishers over Claude's training on copyrighted song lyrics; the first of the music-publisher suits against Anthropic, later joined on this record by Sony Music Publishing and BMG
federal court in San Jose, Judge Eumi Lee
  • — Judge Lee heard both sides ask her to decide the case without a trial (cross-motions for summary judgment). The publishers said Claude reproduces lyrics "sometimes verbatim" and that AI-made songs compete with human songwriters. Anthropic said users, not Anthropic, are responsible for their prompts. She did not rule at the hearing. It is the first fair-use hearing of this kind in an AI-training case since the Bartz and Kadrey rulings more than a year and a half ago.
  • — Written arguments for a ruling without a trial (summary judgment) were completed — one of only three AI copyright cases nationwide to reach that point this year, alongside the Mosaic (Databricks) and OpenAI combined cases.
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Sony Music Publishing v. Anthropic
Music publisher over training data: downloading by torrent, claims that Amodei and Mann helped others infringe (contributory infringement), and removal of CMI — the ownership and licensing tags on a work
federal court in the Northern District of California (N.D. Cal.); expected before Judge Eumi Lee, who has the Concord and BMG suits
  • — Filed Aug. 28; the 13th copyright suit against Anthropic on the tracker's count, mirroring Concord's second case and filed by the same firm.
—
Anthropic v. U.S. Department of War
Anthropic's First Amendment challenge to its designation as a supply-chain risk
Judge Rita Lin
  • — Anthropic won a ruling without a trial (summary judgment) on the First Amendment claim; a temporary court order (a preliminary injunction) had issued earlier in the year.
—
Google v. SerpApi
Claims under the law against breaking technical locks (DMCA anti-circumvention) against a search-results scraper
federal court in the Northern District of California (N.D. Cal.), Chief Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers
  • — SerpApi asked the court to throw out Google's updated complaint (the First Amended Complaint).
  • — Google refiled, narrowed to Knowledge Panel images as the July ruling allowed.
  • — Most claims thrown out for good (dismissed with prejudice) July 20: Google's SearchGuard protects ad revenue, not a copyrighted work; Google got 21 days to file revised claims.
—
Reddit v. Perplexity and SerpApi
Claims under the law against breaking technical locks (DMCA anti-circumvention) over scraping of Reddit content
federal court in the Southern District of New York (S.D.N.Y.), Judge Paul A. Engelmayer
  • — Reddit asked the judge to bar its former law firm, Proskauer Rose, from defending Perplexity (a motion to disqualify). Reddit says Proskauer learned confidential details of Reddit's licensing deals with Google and OpenAI while working for Reddit. Proskauer denies it. Perplexity's other lawyers asked to leave the case; the judge put that off until he rules on Proskauer. No ruling yet on either request.
  • — Perplexity raised a First Amendment (free speech) defense, eight days after Anthropic did the same in Gilbert v. Anthropic.
  • — The court refused requests to throw out the suit (motions to dismiss), so it goes forward — days after a different judge threw out most of Google's near-identical claims against SerpApi.
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Amazon v. Perplexity
Claims under the federal anti-hacking law (the CFAA) over Perplexity's Comet browser, an AI agent acting for its user on Amazon.com
Ninth Circuit federal appeals court (the Aug. 5 ruling); the trial court is not stated in the record
  • — Perplexity asked the court to throw out the case before trial (a motion to dismiss). It says Amazon's Conditions of Use don't meet the legal bar for the new contract claim, and that Amazon's computer-access arguments are the ones the Ninth Circuit already rejected. No ruling yet.
  • — Amazon's updated complaint (an amended complaint) added a new claim: that Perplexity knowingly got Amazon customers to break Amazon's Conditions of Use by letting Comet onto Amazon's marketplace (tortious interference with contract). Amazon also says Comet for iOS used customers' copied login cookies to connect Perplexity's own servers straight to Amazon from March 18 to at least May 11, while Perplexity told the Ninth Circuit otherwise. Perplexity denies the new claims.
  • — A temporary court order (a preliminary injunction) was overturned: the Assistant acts on the user's direction, so Perplexity is unlikely to be the one accessing Amazon's servers without authorization.
—
CNN v. Perplexity
Copyright claims over training inputs and outputs
not stated in the record
  • — Perplexity asked the court to throw out claims two through five (Counts II–V) — everything except the claims about content used as training input.
—
Seattle Times and Newsday v. OpenAI and Microsoft
Copyright, DMCA and — a first on this record — trademark dilution under federal trademark law (the Lanham Act), over made-up (hallucinated) content wrongly credited to the papers
federal court in the Southern District of New York (S.D.N.Y.), filed Sept. 4; to join the combined federal case against OpenAI (the OpenAI MDL)
  • — Filed; the complaint cites a roughly 47% fall in search referrals to mid-sized regional publishers from December 2024 to December 2025.
—
Times Publishing Co. (Tampa Bay Times) v. OpenAI and Microsoft
The Tampa Bay Times' publisher over copyright, responsibility for someone else's infringement (vicarious infringement), and removal under the DMCA of CMI — the ownership and licensing tags on a work
federal court in the Southern District of New York (S.D.N.Y.), filed Sept. 16; likely to go to Judge Stein and join the combined federal case against OpenAI (the OpenAI MDL)
  • — Filed — the second newspaper suit against OpenAI and Microsoft in under two weeks, after the Seattle Times and Newsday. By the complaint's own count it is the 27th copyright suit against OpenAI and the 15th against Microsoft, out of 143 against AI companies.
—
USA Today Co. v. OpenAI
USA Today Co. and 13 affiliated newspapers over GPT training on their articles: copyright, vicarious infringement (responsibility for someone else's infringement), and a DMCA claim over stripped authorship credits
federal court in the Southern District of New York (S.D.N.Y.), filed Oct. 8; the papers asked to join the combined federal case against OpenAI (the OpenAI MDL)
  • — Filed, seeking more than $250 million, including up to $150,000 for each work OpenAI is found to have copied on purpose (willful infringement). The complaint says the papers' content appears more than 160,000 times in WebText, the dataset behind GPT-2.
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Sullivan et al. v. OpenAI
Textbook authors over training data
federal court in the Southern District of New York (S.D.N.Y.), filed Aug. 14
  • — Filed; the tracker counts it as the 132nd AI copyright case, echoing Sullivan v. Meta in the Northern District of California.
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wikiHow v. OpenAI
Copyright over training inputs and query responses, vicarious infringement (responsibility for someone else's infringement), and removal under the DMCA of CMI — the ownership and licensing tags on a work
not stated in the record
  • — Filed; the 24th copyright suit against OpenAI and the 137th AI copyright suit nationwide on the tracker's count.
—
Penske Media v. Google
Antitrust (competition law): Google's search dominance used to obtain publisher content for AI Overviews without compensation
Judge Amit Mehta
  • — Mehta dismissed Penske's and Chegg's antitrust claims: publishers had only an 'expectation' of search traffic back, not a contract. He also rejected the claim that AI Overviews is a separate product tied to search. The dismissal is without prejudice, so Penske can amend and refile.
  • — At the hearing on Google's request to throw out the suit (a motion to dismiss), Mehta said Google's use of publisher content in AI Overviews 'seems really unfair' and that product improvements 'are not immune from antitrust scrutiny'.
—
United States v. Google (search remedy appeal)
Appeal of the six-year remedy — the fix the court ordered — that Judge Mehta imposed, built on data sharing and syndication
D.C. Circuit federal appeals court
  • — A brief from outside parties not in the case (an amicus brief), filed Aug. 4 by Joel Thayer and Asad Ramzanali, urged the court to strengthen, not narrow, the remedy, citing Google's 21% share of foundation-model API revenue.
—
In re Mosaic LLM Litigation (Databricks)
Five authors over training MPT and DBRX on their books
federal court in the Northern District of California (N.D. Cal.), Judge Charles Breyer
  • — News/Media Alliance, the Association of American Publishers and STM filed a joint brief as outside groups (an amicus brief) Aug. 27, opposing a ruling without a trial (summary judgment) for Databricks.
—
Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence
One of the earliest fair-use rulings against an AI company, now on appeal
Third Circuit federal appeals court
  • — ROSS filed a letter pointing the appeals court to new authority (a Rule 28(j) letter): the Justice Department's Sept. 1 fair-use statement in the combined federal case against OpenAI (the OpenAI MDL).
—
Doe 1 v. GitHub (No. 24-7700)
Coders' claim that GitHub's Copilot coding assistant broke the DMCA by stripping CMI — the ownership and licensing tags on code — when it wrote new code
Ninth Circuit federal appeals court
  • — The appeals court upheld throwing out the claim: writing new AI output is not the same as removing tags from an existing copy. It did not adopt the lower court's reasoning, which required the output to be identical to the original, calling that a "misnomer". It is the first federal appeals ruling on this question for AI outputs.
—
Gray v. Nadella et al.
Shareholder derivative suit — a suit by shareholders against the board on the company's behalf — over copyright-infringement risk at Microsoft; the third of its kind
federal court in the Western District of Washington (W.D. Wash.), filed Sept. 9; expected to be combined before Judge Rothstein with the Anderson and Gusinsky Trust suits
  • — Filed against Nadella, other directors and officers, and Microsoft itself.
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American Federation of Musicians v. Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group
Union claims that the labels licensed recordings to Suno and Udio without paying the new-use fees its contract requires
not stated in the record
  • — The union dropped Warner; claims against Universal continue.
—

Regulators and legislatures

Regulators and legislatures: action, date, next date and items
ActorActionDateNextItems
European Commission Fined Alphabet €460 million under Article 6(5) of the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) for favoring its own services (self-preferencing) — nine Google services — in search ranking and crawling; the decision excludes AI Overviews. —
European Commission Designated ChatGPT a very large online search engine under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) — the EU label that puts the biggest search services under the law's strictest rules. ChatGPT is the third so designated, after Google Search and Bing, and the first that is not a traditional search engine. —
UK Competition and Markets Authority Ordered Google to give publishers an AI opt-out and attribution rights. —
Alliance de la Presse d'Information Générale (France) Complaint to France's competition authority: AI Overviews, launched in France without publisher consent, breach the 2022 compensation agreement under which Google was fined €250 million in 2024. —
U.S. Congress (bipartisan bill) A bill would require AI crawlers to identify themselves. —
UK Competition and Markets Authority Proposed letting Android and Chrome users pick an AI assistant such as ChatGPT or Perplexity, not just a rival search engine, on Google's default search choice screen — if the assistant meets technical and security tests the CMA has not detailed. The consultation closed Oct. 9; that day the News/Media Alliance asked again for AI assistants to be left off the screen, a request the CMA's draft had already rejected. A final decision is due by the end of the year. —
UK Competition and Markets Authority Ordered Google to give approved third parties free tools to move a UK user's search data at that user's request (a data portability requirement). Imposed June 17, 2026, but published to the CMA's register only on Oct. 1. Google may meet it by extending to the UK the tool it built for the EU's Digital Markets Act; compliance was due around mid-September. —
UK Parliament (Private Member's Bill) The Automated Online Software (Access and Transparency) Bill, from MP Damian Hinds, would require bots scraping UK websites to say who runs them and why, separating search indexing from AI training. Eight national news outlets urged Prime Minister Andy Burnham to back it. It was set for a second reading on Oct. 16; no outcome has been reported. —
Movement for an Open Web, to the European Commission and the UK Competition and Markets Authority Complained that Meta's new business terms are anti-competitive and asked regulators to suspend them before they take effect Oct. 30 (interim measures). The terms let Meta use content from sites tied to a business or ad account; Meta dropped the word "train" on Oct. 17 and says the terms do not change its crawlers or override robots.txt. The CMA says it met Meta Oct. 21 and is in "urgent discussions"; the Commission says it will assess the complaint. On Oct. 24 Meta pushed the effective date to Nov. 20, without saying it will change the wording.
Meta's revised business terms, which publishers say let it take site content for AI, take effect (delayed from Oct. 30)

Rows last revised Oct 23, 2026. A row changes when a law-money item publishes; nothing here is updated on a schedule.