Case updates
For more details and documents, see Court Listener.
May 11, 2023
On Thursday May 4, the Court held a hearing on the motions to dismiss filed by Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI, as well as a motion filed by the plaintiffs to preserve their anonymity. In its order following the hearing, the Court largely allowed the plaintiffs’ complaint to move forward, agreeing that the plaintiffs have standing to proceed with claims for injunctive relief and upholding the sufficiency of most of plaintiffs’ substantive claims.
Of particular significance, the Court completely denied defendants’ efforts to dismiss two of plaintiffs’ most significant claims, namely the breach of open-source licenses (see p.22 of the order) and the removal of copyright-management information under DMCA § 1202(b)(1) and § 1202(b)(3) (see p.21).
Beyond that, as is common in cases like this, the Court has given the plaintiffs permission to address remaining pleading issues by filing an amended complaint (by June 8). The plaintiffs also prevailed on their motion to preserve their anonymity (see p.14).
Overall we consider this a positive ruling for the plaintiffs and an important first step in the litigation. The Court has set a case-management conference for July 11, 2023 at which time the parties will discuss a discovery plan and setting a schedule for future events in the case.
March 10, 2023
Plaintiffs filed oppositions to these motions to dismiss.
January 26, 2023
Microsoft / GitHub and OpenAI filed motions to dismiss Plaintiffs’ complaint.
November 10, 2022
Second complaint filed on behalf of two more plaintiffs.
Plaintiffs would later consolidate the two complaints into a single complaint.
November 3, 2022
Initial complaint filed on behalf of two plaintiffs.