California Plaintiffs Denied Request to Intervene in NYT Cases
Summary
On April 1, 2024, U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein (SDNY) denied a request by plaintiffs of copyright cases in Northern District of California (e.g., Kadrey and Silverman cases) to intervene in four AI cases in the Southern District of New York, including New York Times and Authors Guild cases against OpenAI. Judge Stein determined that the California plaintiffs cannot intervene as a right under FRCP 24(a) because they do not have a cognizable interest and, if they did, the NY plaintiffs would adequately represent an interest in protecting allegedly infringing copyrighted works. Judge Stein further determined that the California plaintiffs do not satisfy the requirements of permissive intervention, noting that an intervention would prejudice the NY plaintiffs and disrupt the NY cases, which have party-agreed expedited timelines and have substantially progressed.
The California plaintiffs filed a notice of interlocutory appeal on April 15 and filed the appeal with the Second Circuit on April 18.
