Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVES: New front opens in fight over copyrighted works used in AI training, (Aug 14, 2026)
Organizations Mentioned:Nvidia
Strategic Perspectives article examines recently filed shareholder derivative lawsuits filed against Microsoft, Adobe, and NVIDIA, alleging harms to investments from willful copyright infringement.
Well over 100 copyright infringement suits have been filed against artificial intelligence companies by rights owners claiming their works have been unlawfully used to train AI models. A new legal theory has emerged that also involves allegations of copyright infringement on a massive scale, but these suits are being brought by investors against corporate directors and officers. The complaining shareholders assert that the corporate leaders engaged in breaches of fiduciary duties and securities law violations by knowingly carrying out strategies of AI development that exposed the companies to potentially enormous liability for damages in the numerous infringement suits being pursued by copyright owners.
So far, shareholder derivative complaints have been filed against the company leaders of Adobe (in California), Microsoft (in Washington), and NVIDIA (in Illinois). Although this avenue of recovery is untested, and obstacles could stand in the way of victory for the shareholders, these actions could provide additional new incentives for changes in corporate governance policies regarding AI development.
A Strategic Perspectives article summarizes the complaints and considers the potential implications of the novel legal approach taken by them. The article, titled “Shareholders file derivative suits in new wave of copyright-related litigation against AI companies,” is available here.
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