Apple Shareholders Sue Company Heads Over AI Copyright Claims; Bloomberg Law, August 17, 2026

Rebecca Klar

 , Bloomberg Law; Apple Shareholders Sue Company Heads Over AI Copyright Claims

"Apple’s top directors and officers knew of copyright violations while training artificial intelligence models, leading to potentially liabilities and reputational damages, a new investor lawsuit said. 

Apple’s executives and board members violated their fiduciary duties and acted in bad faith by “knowingly or recklessly” causing the company to engage in copyright infringement, according to shareholder Phil Rosen’s derivative lawsuit filed Friday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. 

Multiple tech giants have been sued by shareholders over AI-related claims, including copyright concerns and allegations that they over-hyped capabilities. Apple is also facing separate copyright infringement lawsuits. 

Apple trained its models on data sets that included pirated books as well as videos extracted without authorization from YouTube or the copyright of those works, the lawsuit said."

Jury Finds 'Jersey Boys' Creators Liable for Copyright Infringment; Hollywood Reporter, 11/29/16

Ashley Cullins, Hollywood Reporter; Jury Finds 'Jersey Boys' Creators Liable for Copyright Infringment:

"The jury on Monday found that DeVito did not grant an implied license for the creators of the stage play to use his book as source material — and attributed 10 percent of Jersey Boys' success to infringement of the book."

Russian Social Network vKontakte Held Liable For Copyright Infringement A Second Time; Intellectual Property Watch, 10/12/12

Daria Kim, Intellectual Property Watch; Russian Social Network vKontakte Held Liable For Copyright Infringement A Second Time: "This week, the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and Leningradskaya Oblast announced a decision holding vKontakte, the Russian largest social network, liable for copyright infringement. This is the second case between the parties in which the court sided with the right holder following a decision earlier this year."