OpenAI and ‘fair use’: publishers have learnt their lesson from Kadrey
In Kadrey v. Meta , numerous authors accused Meta of using their books without authorisation to train Llama. In June 2025, however, Judge Vince Chhabria had ruled in Meta’s favour under the fair use exception, primarily because the authors had failed to demonstrate economic harm. He had, however, pointed out a potentially winning argument: the ability of AI to mass-produce competing content and to ‘dilute’ the… market for human-created works. Nearly fifteen months later, the publishers opposing OpenAI and Microsoft appear to have learnt their lesson, and this time they have presented convincing evidence. In their submissions filed yesterday in the “ In re OpenAI” case and published by Thomson Reuters , they cite Kadrey extensively, particularly where Chhabria observes that the press could be even more vulnerable than books…