Anthropic Can Train AI On Books But Faces Trial On Pirating

By Elliot Weld

A California federal judge said artificial intelligence firm Anthropic can use books to train its LLM under the principle of fair use, but said the company would go to trial against a group of authors over the storage of millions of pirated books.

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Analysis

Anthropic Copyright Ruling May Spur More AI Licensing Deals

By Ivan Moreno

The first federal court decision on the fairness of taking copyrighted material to train generative artificial intelligence is a mixed outcome for tech companies and content creators that could prompt both parties to seek coexistence, according to attorneys, with the judge concluding that while the technology is "spectacularly" transformative, using pirated material is inexcusable.

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Visa Can't Duck DOJ's Debit Card Monopoly Case

By Matthew Perlman

A New York federal court has refused to throw out the U.S. Department of Justice's case accusing Visa of illegally maintaining a monopoly over debit card networks, rejecting arguments about the market at issue, discounts offered and the scope of deals with would-be competitors.

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No New Trial For Convicted Crypto CEO Linked To Abramoff

By Bonnie Eslinger

A California federal judge Tuesday declined to acquit a cryptocurrency company founder convicted of fraud and money laundering in a case that also involved disgraced ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, calling the defendant's assertions that the court wrongly blocked evidence showing Abramoff had conspired against the company "laughable."

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10th Circ. Rejects Ex-GC's Sanctions Bid Against Loeb & Loeb

By Lynn LaRowe

The Tenth Circuit has sided with a district court's decision dismissing a bid by the former general counsel of a medical device company to have Loeb & Loeb LLP sanctioned for bringing what he said was a baseless lawsuit against him on behalf of his former employer.

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Job Search Site Monster Hits Ch. 11 With 3 Initial Bidders

By Emlyn Cameron

The company behind job search website Monster.com filed for bankruptcy Tuesday, listing over $100 million in liabilities and saying in a news release that it has three stalking horse bidders for various assets lined up.

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GOP Senators Unveil Crypto Market Framework Principles

By Sarah Jarvis

Senate Republicans on Tuesday morning released a set of principles to guide the development of digital asset market structure legislation, their latest push toward regulating the cryptocurrency space following their passage of stablecoin legislation last week.

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Judge Cites Slack In Tossing Allbirds Investors' IPO Suit

By Jessica Corso

A California federal judge has once again tossed an investor class action accusing shoemaker Allbirds Inc. of failing to warn investors about the risks of its shifting business strategy ahead of its initial public offering, ruling that shareholders would need to prove they can overcome the U.S. Supreme Court's Slack test in order to move forward with the case.

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ByteDance Can't Arbitrate Pay Bias Suit, Calif. Court Says

By Rae Ann Varona

A California state appellate court has rejected TikTok parent ByteDance Inc.'s bid to make a former employee arbitrate pay discrimination claims against it, saying that an underlying arbitration agreement was unenforceable for requiring her to arbitrate claims while preserving all the Chinese internet technology company's rights and remedies.

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Dollar General Beats Investor Suit Over Short Inventory, Staff

By Katryna Perera

A Tennessee federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a proposed securities class action accusing Dollar General and its executives of hiding inventory and staffing issues, saying the plaintiffs have failed to show that the defendants acted with an intent to deceive.

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Ex-J&J Atty's Race Bias Suit Lacks Facts, Company Argues

By Jake Maher

Johnson & Johnson Services Inc. told a New Jersey federal court this week that a former in-house data privacy attorney suing the pharmaceuticals giant for discrimination failed to plead any facts supporting her allegation that the company passed her over for a job in favor of a less qualified candidate.

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Faulty Comparisons Doom Nordstrom 401(k) Fee Suit

By Patrick Hoff

Nordstrom dodged a proposed class action claiming it saddled its 401(k) plan with excessive fees and used forfeited plan funds to offset its own contributions, with a Washington state federal judge saying inaccurate data and flawed comparisons to other plans couldn't sustain the case.

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Brief

Landmark Product Safety Conviction Faces 9th Circ. Appeal

By Jonathan Capriel

A former Gree USA executive has appealed his conviction and 38-month prison sentence in the first-ever criminal prosecution of individuals under the Consumer Product Safety Act, according to a Tuesday filing in California federal court.

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Chancery Won't Let Nielsen Spinoff Block Access To Data

By Jeff Montgomery

Nielsen Holdings Ltd. won a temporary restraining order in Delaware's Court of Chancery Tuesday blocking a spun-off consumer intelligence venture from denying access to data used by Nielsen and another company that it intends to sell to the dissenting spinoff's competitor.

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Walmart Must Face Trial In Customer's Oil Slip-And-Fall Suit

By Jonathan Capriel

Walmart failed to get a man's slip-and-fall lawsuit dismissed Tuesday, after an Illinois federal judge ruled that a jury needs to determine if the shopper should have seen and avoided the cooking oil spill that caused his injuries.

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Del. Dispatch: General Partner Discretion In Valuing Incentives

In Walker v. FRP Investors, the Delaware Court of Chancery recently held that the general partner of a limited partnership breached its obligations when determining the threshold value of newly issued incentive units, highlighting the court's willingness to reconstruct what a reasonable determination of value by a general partner should have been, say attorneys at Fried Frank.

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DOJ Has Deep Toolbox For Corporate Immigration Violations

With the U.S. Department of Justice now offering rewards to whistleblowers who report businesses that employ unauthorized workers, companies should understand the immigration enforcement landscape and how they can reduce their risk, say attorneys at McDermott.

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Trade In Limbo: The Legal Storm Reshaping Trump's Tariffs

In the final days of May, decisions in two significant court actions upended the tariff and trade landscape, so until the U.S. Supreme Court rules, businesses and supply chains should expect tariffs to remain in place, and for the Trump administration to continue pursuing and enforcing all available trade policies, say attorneys at Ice Miller.

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Speech Protection Questions In AI Case Raise Liability Risk

A Florida federal court's recent landmark ruling in Garcia v. Character Technologies, rejecting artificial intelligence developers' efforts to shield themselves from product liability and wrongful death claims under the First Amendment, challenges the assumption that chatbot outputs qualify as speech, and may redefine AI regulation and litigation nationally, says Peter Gregory at Goldberg Segalla.

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Shareholder Takeaways From NY Internal Affairs Doctrine Suit

A May New York Court of Appeals decision in Ezrasons v. Rudd involving Barclays — affirming the state's "firmly entrenched" internal affairs doctrine — is a win for all corporate stakeholders seeking stability in resolving disputes between shareholders and directors and officers, say attorneys at Sadis & Goldberg.

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3 Rulings May Reveal Next Frontier Of Gov't Contract Cases

Several U.S. Supreme Court decisions over the past year — involving wire fraud, gratuities and obstruction — offer wide-ranging and arguably conflicting takeaways for government contractors that are especially relevant given the Trump administration’s focus on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, say attorneys at Rogers Joseph.

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Move Beyond Surface-Level Edits To Master Legal Writing

Recent instances in which attorneys filed briefs containing artificial intelligence hallucinations offer a stark reminder that effective revision isn’t just about superficial details like grammar — it requires attorneys to critically engage with their writing and analyze their rhetorical choices, says Ivy Grey at WordRake.

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Kasowitz Rebrands Amid Shift To Streamlined Firm Names

By Andrea Keckley

Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP announced Tuesday that it is rebranding to Kasowitz LLP, becoming the latest firm to shorten its name.

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3rd Circ. Pick Told DOJ To Defy Courts, Whistleblower Says

By Courtney Bublé

A top career official at the U.S. Department of Justice who was fired has come forward with a whistleblower complaint alleging Third Circuit judicial nominee Emil Bove, who was acting deputy attorney general at the beginning of the year, sought to defy court orders.

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Judiciary Warns Congress Of Cyber Risks To PACER

By Courtney Bublé

PACER, the online public repository of federal court documents, is vulnerable to cyberthreats, a top judiciary official told members of Congress on Tuesday.

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Former DOJ Antitrust Official Joins Latham

By Bryan Koenig

Latham & Watkins LLP on Wednesday announced the addition of a new D.C.-based antitrust partner with the hiring of Andrew Forman, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division who is rejoining private practice after three years of helping lead civil competition enforcement.

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Winston & Strawn Sues Hunter Biden For 'Unpaid Legal Fees'

By Alison Knezevich

Winston & Strawn LLP is suing Hunter Biden in Washington, D.C., alleging he owes the BigLaw firm more than $50,000 for legal work related to his federal criminal case in Delaware and other matters.

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Another Musk Case, Another Judge Recusal

By Bryan Koenig

A California federal magistrate judge on Tuesday became the latest federal judge to recuse from a case involving Elon Musk, this time stepping down from handling his lawsuit challenging OpenAI's now-abandoned transition to a for-profit enterprise.

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ABA Announces New Research Into Attorney Mental Health

By Emma Cueto

The American Bar Association announced Tuesday it is launching a national research project on attorney mental health, which will provide an updated benchmark of the issue nearly a decade after its 2016 study.

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Trump Hones Immunity Argument In 2nd Circ. Carroll Appeal

By Pete Brush

Counsel for President Donald Trump told the Second Circuit on Tuesday that he did not "unequivocally and explicitly" waive presidential immunity before a jury awarded writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million in their defamation battle, refining the theory that he cannot be held liable.

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