Bird v. Microsoft Corporation

Photographer Jeff Bird is among a class of authors who filed a class action against Microsoft on 25 June 2025, alleging that the company unlawfully copied their’ works to train its AI systems, including the Megatron large-language model. The complaint asserts that Microsoft ingested vast quantities of copyrighted material, mainly drawn from “The Pile”, an 800GB+ open source dataset which includes “Books3”, a dataset of pirated material allegedly used by Microsoft to train its models using copyrighted content without licence or consent. By using these materials to train generative models capable of reproducing or summarising the protected works, Microsoft is alleged to have violated 17 U.S.C. §§ 106 (direct copyright infringement). Bird et al seek injunctive relief prohibiting Microsoft from training its models on copyrighted material, as well as damages including statutory damages of up to US$ 150,000 per work allegedly infringed.

Case stayed on 9 September 2025.

This summary is provided for educational and research purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Allegations described are those made in the filings. Please consult the underlying source documents.