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Music Publishers' Nashville Lawsuit Over Alleged Use of Lyrics in AI Generative Program Is Sent to California Federal Court
In a closely watched AI litigation in which major music publishers sued over Anthropic PBC's alleged use of the plaintiffs' lyrics to train its "Claude" generative AI program, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, Nashville Division, has decided it lacks personal jurisdiction over Anthropic and that the case should be transferred to federal court in the Northern District of California. Concord Music Group Inc. v. Anthropic PBC, 3:23-cv-01092. The music publishers accuse the San Francisco-based Anthropic of using the plaintiffs' works without permission as training materials that allows consumers to generate identical or nearly identical copies of the publishers' song lyrics. The publishers' causes of action allege direct, contributory and vicarious copyright infringement, as well as removal of copyright management information. In the recent ruling, Middle Tennessee District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. determined: "[T]he Court does not find that Anthropic purposefully availed itself of Tennessee merely because users can access Claude in Tennessee and Claude can output content related to Tennessee upon request." District Judge Crenshaw added: "Plaintiffs made a strategic decision to sue a California-based company in the Middle District of Tennessee, and in doing so ran the risk of encountering a jurisdictional hurdle too high to climb. Once that hurdle is pushed to the side and this case is transferred to the Northern District of California, Plaintiffs will be free to run their case to the finish line on the merits.
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|New York Appellate Court Affirms Dismissal of Fashion Model's Publicity Right Claim Over Ralph Lauren Documentary
The New York Appellate Division, First Department, decided fashion model Anastassia Khozissova failed to establish that her inclusion, without her consent, in a documentary about "fashion icon" Ralph Lauren violated her right of publicity under New York law. Khozissova v. Ralph Lauren Corp., 2514-2515. Khozissova filed suit under N.Y. Civil Rights Law §§50 and 51 over the film Very Ralph and its trailer in which she also appeared. But affirming a New York County trial court's dismissal of Khozissova's complaint against the Lauren Corp. and HBO, the appellate court found: "Plaintiff, who acknowledges the film is a 'documentary about Ralph Lauren,' fails to allege any facts to support her conclusory assertion that the film is a disguised advertisement for defendant Ralph Lauren Corp. Further, plaintiff does not show that the matters as to which she claims to need discovery — any Ralph Lauren/HBO agreements, including profit-sharing agreements, regarding the film — would advance her position, as it is the 'content' of the work, rather than a defendant's profit from it, that bears on whether 'a newsworthy use, as opposed to a trade usage' is at issue for purposes of [S]ection 51. The appellate court added that the trial court "also properly dismissed the action as against HBO on grounds that, to the extent the film uses plaintiff's image, it does so in an 'isolated,' or 'fleeting and incidental' manner" of 38 seconds in the 108-minute documentary film and one second during the 90-second trailer.
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