NYT, Ziff Davis lose bid to revive copyright claims against Microsoft
What this answers
- Does the News Plaintiffs' or Ziff Davis's copyright case against Microsoft and OpenAI still include contributory-infringement claims?
- No. Judge Stein denied both plaintiff groups leave to revive contributory-infringement theories against Microsoft, dismissing their existing claims with prejudice after the Supreme Court's Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment ruling foreclosed that legal theory.
A federal judge overseeing the consolidated In re OpenAI Copyright Infringement Litigation denied the New York Times, Daily News, and Ziff Davis leave to add new contributory-infringement theories against Microsoft, per Chat GPT Is Eating the World. Judge Stein dismissed the plaintiffs’ existing material-contribution contributory-infringement and trademark-dilution claims with prejudice, after they had voluntarily abandoned that theory once the Supreme Court’s Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment ruling foreclosed it; Ziff Davis’s claims tied to newer OpenAI models were dismissed without prejudice.
Why it matters: The ruling narrows one of publishers' legal theories against Microsoft in the sprawling OpenAI copyright MDL, showing how the Supreme Court's Cox Communications decision is foreclosing contributory-infringement claims across AI-training lawsuits.
The record: OpenAIAI training & copyright litigationMicrosoft
Via Chat GPT Is Eating the World ↗
Posted to the wire August 7, 2026. Edited by Joe Balewski.