Apple Faces Copyright Lawsuit From SUNY Professors Over AI Training Data

Case Overview: Two SUNY professors claim Apple trained its AI models on copyrighted books, including their own, without permission.

Consumers Affected: Authors whose works were allegedly copied for Apple’s OpenELM or Foundation AI models.

Court: U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division

Apple is back under legal fire over its “Apple Intelligence” models, with two neuroscientists claiming the models were trained on copyrighted works without permission, including books they wrote.

The proposed class action lawsuit accuses the tech giant of building its artificial intelligence system on a foundation of pirated material, sidestepping the creators whose work made the technology smarter.

The complaint, filed in federal court, alleges that Apple reproduced registered works without authorization to build databases of training materials for its suite of generative AI systems. 

The company’s Apple Intelligence platform, which powers AI features across iPhones, iPads, and Macs, is said to have relied on datasets that included copyrighted books, without licenses, payments, or the authors’ consent.

SUNY Professors Say Apple Used Their Work To Train AI Models Without Consent

The lawsuit was filed by Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen L. Macknik, both professors at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University and internationally recognized neuroscientists and authors. 

Together, they wrote Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals About Our Everyday Deceptions, an award-winning book translated into 19 languages — and allegedly one of the works Apple copied to train its AI.

The professors say Apple not only used pirated copies of their books, but also created derivative versions as part of data processing and fine-tuning its AI. They argue that this conduct violated their rights as authors, diminished the value of their works, and allowed Apple to profit from intellectual property it did not own.

Complaint Targets Apple’s Use of the “Books3” Dataset and Web Scraping Tools

At the center of the case is “Books3,” a massive database of pirated books widely circulated online and often used by AI developers as a cheap source of high-quality text. The professors claim Apple incorporated Books3 into training its “OpenELM” and “Foundation” language models, key components of its new AI system.

The lawsuit also accuses Apple of using “Applebot,” a web-crawling software that scraped vast amounts of internet data, including from unauthorized “shadow libraries” hosting copyrighted material. Plaintiffs say Apple did this for nearly a decade before acknowledging it was using such data for AI training.

Despite having legitimate licenses to sell e-books through its Apple Books app, the lawsuit alleges that Apple crossed the line by copying and repurposing those same works for AI development. 

The professors argue that Apple’s AI models now generate outputs that directly compete with the creative works that trained them, eroding authors’ economic and moral rights.

Lawsuit Joins Growing Wave of AI Copyright Cases Against Tech Giants

This isn’t the first time Apple has faced these kinds of claims. A separate class action filed in September made similar allegations that the company relied on the Books3 dataset to train its AI models. 

Other tech firms are under scrutiny too: Anthropic recently agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a lawsuit from U.S. authors who said their books were used without permission to train its chatbot Claude.

Meanwhile, Otter.ai, Amazon, and Dialpad are battling their own legal fights over how they collect and use personal data for machine learning, part of a growing wave of cases testing how far AI companies can go in using copyrighted or private material.

The professors aim to represent all authors whose registered works were copied or ingested by Apple for training its OpenELM or Foundation models without authorization. They are suing for copyright infringement and seeking damages, legal fees, and an injunction that would bar Apple from continuing to use pirated or unlicensed data.

Case Details

• Lawsuit: Martinez-Conde, et al. v. Apple Inc.
• Case Number: 5:25-cv-08695  
• Court: U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division

Plaintiffs' Attorneys

• Joseph R. Saveri (Joseph Saveri Law Firm, LLP)

Are you an author or creator concerned about how AI companies use copyrighted works? Share your thoughts on this lawsuit below.