Plaintiffs in 2 Authors’ Suits vs. Microsoft, Open AI to File Consolidated Class Action by Friday

The parties in two authors’ complaints for copyright infringement against Microsoft and OpenAI consent that the plaintiffs will file a consolidated class action complaint by Friday, and that Microsoft and OpenAI will respond to that complaint by Feb. 9, said their joint stipulation Monday (docket 1:23-cv-08292) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan. The parties also agree to submit proposed schedules by Friday for fact discovery, expert discovery and the briefing of summary judgment, said the stipulation. The plaintiffs allege that OpenAI and Microsoft copied the rights owners’ protected works to train their large language models as generative AI tools, and did so without compensating the rights owners or seeking their consent (see 2401030003).