Pulitzer Winner Sues 6 AI Giants for Billions Over Copyright

Someone is not in a festive mood, but that’s probably understandable when it comes to the classic story of AI and copyright.

Renowned investigative journalist John Carreyrou, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who exposed the Theranos scandal, has joined forces with five other writers to launch a copyright lawsuit against six AI powerhouses. Filed in federal court, this legal battle could help to reshape how AI companies use creative content—and potentially cost them billions.

Court documents reveal the lawsuit targets tech titans OpenAI, Google, Meta, Anthropic, xAI, and Perplexity AI, accusing them of systematically stealing copyrighted books to train their AI systems without permission or compensation.

Publishers Weekly confirmed the news this week that the authors are seeking $150,000 in statutory damages for each work against each defendant—potentially totaling $900,000 per book. With multiple works involved, the financial stakes could reach astronomical levels.

What makes this case particularly intriguing is the authors’ decision to file individually rather than join larger class-action suits. The plaintiffs specifically avoided class actions because such lawsuits allow defendants to settle “at bargain-basement rates.”

The smoking gun

The lawsuit reveals a pattern that authors describe as a “deliberate act of theft.” Bloomberg Law obtained court filings alleging AI companies downloaded pirated copies of books from “illegal shadow libraries” including LibGen, Z-Library, and OceanofPDF.

Legal documents from earlier this week show the companies have created what plaintiffs call a “clear cycle of infringement: Pirated Acquisition, Model Training, and Commercial Monetization.” The authors argue that their literary works now “anchor multibillion-dollar product ecosystems without compensation.”

AI companies are already drowning in legal troubles. OpenAI alone has received at least seven new lawsuits this year, making it the “most sued company” in the industry with 14 total copyright cases.

This latest filing marks a significant escalation—it’s the first copyright lawsuit against Elon Musk’s xAI over its training process, and the first suit brought by authors against Perplexity AI.

One battle after another

The implications extend far beyond financial penalties. Legal experts tracking AI litigation report that more than 50 lawsuits between intellectual property holders and AI developers are currently pending in federal courts nationwide, according to a Debevoise report from earlier this month.

The landscape is rapidly shifting against AI companies. Courts have begun sustaining output-based infringement claims, with judges citing “verbatim regurgitation and close paraphrasing of copyrighted articles,” the Debevoise analysis documented. Even more concerning for tech giants, courts are increasingly granting IP holders multiple opportunities to revive previously dismissed claims.

The defendants are fighting back with fair use defenses, arguing their AI systems create transformative new content rather than replacing original works. Google emphasizes their use of copyrighted content is “integral to creating innovative AI systems that provide societal benefits.”

But the authors aren’t backing down. Carreyrou and his co-plaintiffs have already opted out of a $1.5 billion class-action settlement with Anthropic, signaling they’re prepared for a lengthy legal battle.

Will this change everything?

If successful, the lawsuit might force companies into costly licensing agreements and slow innovation as resources shift to legal compliance.

For consumers, this legal upheaval might mean changes to how AI chatbots operate, potentially affecting the quality and availability of AI-generated content. The outcome will likely determine whether the future of AI development involves expensive licensing deals with content creators or continues the current practice of training on vast datasets without explicit permission.

As this David-versus-Goliath battle unfolds, one thing becomes clear: the era of AI companies freely using copyrighted content as “free fuel” for their systems may be coming to an end.

Not long ago, OpenAI was a name known mostly within research labs and among Silicon Valley insiders. Today, however, the topic is almost impossible to avoid.

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