On September 5, 2025, authors Grady Hendrix and Jennifer Roberson filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against Apple in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accusing the company of illegally using their copyrighted books to train its “OpenELM” large language models. The lawsuit alleges that Apple relied on a dataset of pirated books, specifically from “shadow libraries” like Books3, without consent, credit, or compensation, violating intellectual property rights. The plaintiffs claim their works were included in this dataset, and Apple’s actions undermine authors’ rights by creating AI outputs that compete with original works. The lawsuit seeks damages, restitution, and potentially the destruction of models trained on pirated content, with one source estimating damages at $2.5 billion.
This case is part of a broader wave of legal actions against tech companies, including Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI, for similar misuse of copyrighted materials in AI training. Notably, Anthropic recently settled a related lawsuit for $1.5 billion, described as the largest copyright recovery to date, setting a precedent that could influence Apple’s case. Apple has not publicly responded, but it may argue fair use or technical distinctions about its OpenELM models. The outcome could shape AI development and copyright law, especially as Apple pushes its AI initiatives, including an overhaul of Siri.
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