Courts are writing AI law faster than legislatures. Ten cases to know, with their status as at November 2026.
Training and copyright
1. Thomson Reuters v Ross (US). The Third Circuit affirmed in September 2026 that training a competing legal research tool on Westlaw headnotes was not fair use.
2. Bartz v Anthropic (US). A settlement over books from pirate sources, reported at $1.5 billion, received final approval in July 2026.
3. Kadrey v Meta (US). In 2025 the court ruled for Meta on fair use on the record before it; remaining claims continue.
4. New York Times v OpenAI and Microsoft (US). At summary judgment; the leading news-publisher case.
5. Getty Images v Stability AI (UK). The High Court largely rejected Getty’s claims in November 2025; Getty has permission to appeal.
6. GEMA v OpenAI (Germany). A Munich court found OpenAI liable for reproducing song lyrics in November 2025; on appeal.
Liability and conduct
7. Mobley v Workday (US). Age discrimination claims against an AI screening vendor, as the employers’ agent, are proceeding on behalf of a nationwide collective.
8. Garcia v Character Technologies (US). A claim that a companion chatbot contributed to a teenager’s death, which a court allowed to proceed in 2025; it has since settled.
9. Ayinde v Haringey (England). The 2025 judgment warning lawyers about fictitious AI-generated citations, now cited in the SRA’s 2026 warning notice.
Agents
10. Amazon v Perplexity (US). In August 2026 the Ninth Circuit lifted an injunction against an AI shopping agent, treating the user, not the AI company, as the one accessing the site.
Few of these cases are finished. The direction of travel matters more than any single result.
This article is general information on the law as at November 2026. It is not legal advice and has not been updated since that date. See the terms of use.