Judge Denies Calif. OpenAI Plaintiffs Intervention in 4 N.Y. Infringement Cases

U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein for Southern New York in Manhattan denied the motion of 14 plaintiff authors in the first-filed copyright infringement suit against OpenAI in the Northern District of California to intervene in the four infringement actions against OpenAI and Microsoft filed subsequently in New York, said his signed opinion and order Monday (docket 1:24-cv-00084).

The California plaintiffs had sought to intervene for the purpose of moving to dismiss, stay or transfer the New York cases (see 2402270018). But the California plaintiffs may not intervene as of right because they haven’t met the requirements of Rule 24(a), said Stein’s opinion and order. The plaintiffs haven’t demonstrated “a cognizable interest or that any such interest would be impaired,” it said.

The California plaintiffs wrongly claim an interest in avoiding contradictory rulings between the New York and California actions and that those contradictory rulings would impair their interests, said the order. But the “substantial differences” between the California and New York actions “lessen any risk of contradictory rulings,” it said. For example, the California plaintiffs assert state law and Digital Millennium Copyright Act claims that aren’t raised in the New York actions, and Microsoft isn’t a defendant in the California action, it said.

For the claims that do overlap, the California plaintiffs “have no legally cognizable interest in avoiding rulings that apply to entirely different plaintiffs in a different district,” said the order. Critically, no class has been certified in any of the New York or California actions, “so each group of plaintiffs only has a direct and cognizable interest in its own proceeding,” it said. Before a class is certified, the California plaintiffs “represent only themselves” and can’t be impaired by any Southern District of New York decision, “which would only be binding as to the New York plaintiffs in their individual capacities,” it said.

Having failed to establish a cognizable interest, the California plaintiffs “similarly fail to establish” that their hypothetical interest would be impaired or impeded, said the order. Any decision of the Southern District of New York on the individual plaintiffs there isn’t binding in the Northern District of California and doesn’t apply to any other plaintiffs, so any potentially contradictory rulings don’t impair the California plaintiffs’ rights, it said.

The California plaintiffs also haven’t shown that the existing parties wouldn’t “adequately represent their hypothetical interest,” said the order. The plaintiffs in the New York actions “share an interest” with the California plaintiffs, which is “to hold OpenAI accountable” for allegedly infringing copyrighted works in training its large language models for AI, it said.

The California plaintiffs haven’t presented any evidence of collusion, adversity, nonfeasance or incompetence “to rebut this presumption,” said the order. They instead allege that the existing parties don’t adequately represent their interests because the Authors Guild, a plaintiff in one of the four New York actions, has publicly indicated an intention to license intellectual property rights to OpenAI, it said.

But that’s not “a sufficient reason to cast doubt on the New York plaintiffs’ ability” to represent the California plaintiffs’ interests, said the order. The Authors Guild “is only one of many plaintiffs,” it said. Even for that single plaintiff, an interest in licensing intellectual property rights doesn’t undermine the Authors Guild’s “interest in or ability to vigorously litigate the case and attempt to hold defendants accountable,” it said.

The judge also denied the California plaintiffs’ motion for permissive intervention in the New York cases because they don’t satisfy the requirements of permissive intervention under Rule 24(b), said his order. The same factors “motivating” the denial of intervention as of right also motivate denial of permissive intervention, it said.

It’s also clear that granting intervention “will prejudice the adjudication of the original parties’ rights” in the New York cases, said the order. The California plaintiffs “explicitly state” that they seek intervention for the limited purpose of filing a motion to dismiss, stay or transfer the New York cases, it said.

But a dismissal, stay or transfer of the New York cases “would certainly prejudice the original parties,” said the order. Intervention and dismissal or transfer also “would disrupt the expedited timeline” agreed to by the parties and ordered by the court in the consolidated New York author actions, “where discovery has already commenced and a schedule for summary judgment briefing has been established,” it said.