AI Class Action Litigation Update (Books): Where things stand in early 2026  

Since 2022 we’ve seen 75 AI copyright lawsuits filed. The Bartz v. Anthropic settlement has been among the most high profile, and it has made many authors wonder if there are similar settlements on the horizon for the suits based on copying of books. This post surveys the current AI book lawsuits, several of which are on the verge of important decisions about whether, like Bartz, they can proceed as class action lawsuits representing the rights of millions of authors. Keep in mind that this space is changing rapidly, with new lawsuits filed very regularly. 

As we’ve noted elsewhere, Chat GPT is Eating the World has been an excellent resource for frequently updated maps of AI copyright lawsuits and case updates. The maps include both class actions and non-class lawsuits (e.g., The New York Times Co. v. Microsoft Corp. & OpenAI). Some lawsuits are focused on books and similar works, while other lawsuits are focused on images, music, and other non-text works.  

If you wish to closely follow one of the lawsuits we detail below, these excellent case updates are one avenue for you. You might also consider closely following the specific docket for a particular lawsuit, which will give you a detailed view of how it is progressing (we link to the Court Listener dockets for each of the lawsuits listed below). 

Before proceeding, here are a few additional observations to consider:

1. Given the sizable settlement of Bartz v. Anthropic, we are now seeing lawsuits structured around the winning arguments in Bartz, focused specifically on the acquisition of works (namely, did they come from shadow library websites like LibGen?)  This will likely continue unless or until it yields different results for future plaintiffs.  

2. These class action suits are primarily driven by the law firms, not the individual named plaintiffs, and so it’s not surprising to see the same law firms filing multiple suits. The Joseph Saveri law firm has filed at least seven Generative AI lawsuits. Eugene Turin of McGuire Law has filed several more.  

3. With the exception of Bartz, the class actions detailed below are all putative class actions, not yet certified by the court. Certification is not automatic – we have written about class certification here and we also filed an amicus brief related to the Bartz class certification, one which detailed our concerns about the class certification in that case. Ultimately, the settlement meant that the certification was not challenged on appeal and thus our concerns were left unresolved. 

4. Class certifications are significant and increase the financial risk to defendants. If the Bartz settlement comes to be viewed as a model (this is by no means a certainty), class certification may significantly increase the likelihood of a settlement. Right now, Anthropic does not appear to be hampered significantly by its settlement and has been widely reported to be raising a new round of funding at a substantially increased valuation. If this settlement ends up looking like a practical business decision (vs. the beginning of long, protracted, expensive and multifront litigation from emboldened plaintiffs), other AI companies may follow suit.

5. We can see that some authors are choosing to pursue lawsuits outside of the class action framework.  As we noted in a previous post, John Carreyrou and several additional authors have opted out of the Bartz settlement and chosen to pursue a separate legal action against Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Meta, xAI, and Perplexity.

With those observations made, onto the class action lawsuits: 

GROUP 1: Class has been certified and the settlement has received preliminary approval but not final approval. 

Bartz v. Anthropic

The plaintiffs in this case have agreed to a 1.5 billion dollar settlement with Anthropic. Details of the settlement can be found on the settlement website. We have written about this case extensively and distilled some of the settlement information into this FAQ for authors. 

If you are a rightsholder in the class and you choose to submit a claim, there is a high probability that you will receive a payment in the hundreds or thousands of dollars. At this moment in time, this is the only lawsuit where the certainty of receiving a payment is so high. The rest of the lawsuits, detailed below, have not yet reached class certification and have not settled. 

GROUP 2: Class not yet certified, litigation at a fairly advanced stage (closing in on class certification question)

Kadrey, et al. v. Meta Platforms, Inc.

Thus far, no class has been certified in this case, though Plaintiffs are actively pushing toward class certification at this time. Meta is opposing Plaintiffs efforts to expedite class certification and has asked the court to stay the proceedings. A brief timeline of recent developments follows:  

• On December 11, 2025, Plaintiffs moved for leave to file a fourth amended complaint, focusing on Meta’s large scale torrenting of in copyright works and adding a contributory infringement claim. 

• Within the motion, we can also find the Plaintiff’s Amended Proposed Class Definition: “All legal or beneficial owners of any book, article, journal, or other written work that Meta uploaded, offered or otherwise made accessible to others, and/or downloaded via BitTorrent; or otherwise reproduced in connection with its LLM(s), between July 7, 2020 and the present (the “Class Period”); and that was registered with the United States Copyright Office (i) within five years of the work’s first publication and (ii) before being uploaded, offered, or made accessible to third parties, and/or downloaded or otherwise copied by Meta, or within three months of first publication.” (Motion at 15)

• On January 6, 2026 Plaintiffs filed a motion to move forward with class certification (“Plaintiffs respectfully request leave to complete discovery (including experts) and schedule briefing on Plaintiffs’ motion for class certification concurrently with the existing case management schedule…”) (Motion at 3)

• On January 12, 2026, Meta opposed the Plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend, opposed the class certification motion, and asked the court to stay the proceedings pending completion of discovery in another case against Meta, Entrepreneur Media v. Meta (not a class action). 

In re Google Generative AI Copyright Litigation

• On October 15, the Plaintiffs filed a motion for class certification.  

• On November 20, Google filed a motion for sanctions against the plaintiffs, arguing that the plaintiffs had tried to “smuggle” in new classes into the lawsuit and reposition the lawsuit away from the training of AI models (“This case is and always has been about training. Yet Plaintiffs now ask to certify multiple classes and subclasses of works that were “downloaded and/or ingested to develop” Google’s generative AI models, whether used for training or not.”) (Motion at 12).

• On December 30, Plaintiffs filed their reply in support of class certification. The class certification hearing was initially set for February 4, but has now been moved to February 20 (from the docket: “Because additional motions relating to class certification have been filed, and briefing will not conclude until 2/5/2026, the hearing set for 2/4/2026 is CONTINUED to 2/20/2026 at 1:00 p.m. in San Jose, Courtroom 7, 4th Floor before Judge Eumi K. Lee.”). This question of class certification is very important to the resolution of this lawsuit. 

GROUP 3: Class not certified, litigation moving forward but significant developments are likely still months away.

In re: OpenAI, Inc. Copyright Infringement Litigation 

• This is a massive, consolidated class action lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. 

• While discovery for this case is ongoing and very active/contentious, there are currently no whispers of class certification or settlement. It seems likely that those developments are, at minimum, several months to a year away.  

In Re Mosaic LLM Litigation

• On January 20, 2026, the plaintiffs in this case were granted leave to file their second amended consolidated complaint, which they filed on January 21. 

• Thus far, this class action has not been certified. The plaintiffs are represented by the Joseph Saveri law firm, which is currently involved in multiple Generative AI lawsuits.

• While heavily redacted and therefore difficult to parse, the amended complaint appears to adopt a strategy informed by the Bartz litigation – rather than focusing primarily on the use of works in LLM training, the amended complaint appears to employ the infringing copies/pirate library strategy, likely informed by the success of that approach in Bartz.  

Huckabee v. Bloomberg

• On November 24, 2025, the court denied Bloomberg’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit. 

• While the parties disagree on the timing of class certification (defendants argue that class certification should be addressed after resolution of motions for summary judgment regarding fair use) their proposed case management plan and scheduling order do not raise the class certification question until March 2027 at the earliest. If that schedule stands, we will be waiting at least a year to see whether the class will be certified.

GROUP 4: Class not certified, lawsuits recently filed and still at an early stage 

Three putative class actions were recently filed by author Darius H. James (complaints can be found here). These lawsuits are still at a very early stage, with class certification and possible settlements likely to be fairly far off. 

James is represented by Eugene Turin and his colleagues at McGuire Law for each of these three cases. 

• James v. Snowflake Inc. (filed Nov. 21, 2025)
• James v. Cerebras Systems (filed October 30, 2025)
• James v. Together Computer (filed November 6, 2025)

Hendrix v. Apple (filed September 5, 2025)

This is a recently consolidated putative class action, based on Apple’s alleged use of the Books3 dataset.  Currently, the parties involved are trying to determine who will lead the litigation as Class Counsel – among other familiar faces, the Joseph Saveri law firm is vying for this role. A hearing to address the leadership question has been scheduled for January 27, 2026. 

Tanzer v. Salesforce, Inc. (filed October 15, 2025)

A consolidated putative class action, related to Salesforce’s alleged use of various datasets including the Books3 dataset. The plaintiffs are represented by the Joseph Saveri law firm.  

Lyon v. Adobe Inc. (filed December 16, 2025)

Filed roughly a month ago, plaintiffs are again represented by Eugene Turin of McGuire Law.