Lawsuit tracker
Raw Story & AlterNet v. OpenAI
Raw Story Media, Inc. and AlterNet Media, Inc. v. OpenAI, No. 1:24-cv-01514 (S.D.N.Y.), on appeal to the Second Circuit; companion case The Intercept Media, Inc. v. OpenAI
| Plaintiffs | Raw Story Media and AlterNet Media (companion suit: The Intercept) |
|---|---|
| Defendants | OpenAI (The Intercept initially also sued Microsoft) |
| Court | U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Judge Colleen McMahon; Intercept case before Judge Jed Rakoff); appeal pending before the Second Circuit |
| Filed | 2024-02-28 |
| Status | On appeal |
| Content type | journalism |
| Last updated | 2026-07-21 |
The claims
DMCA §1202(b) only — removal of copyright-management information (bylines, titles, copyright notices) from articles used in training data. No direct copyright infringement count; coverage of the cases noted the outlets had not registered their articles, which forecloses ordinary infringement claims.
What has happened
Raw Story, AlterNet and, in a parallel case filed the same day, The Intercept sued OpenAI on a stripped-down theory: not that training itself infringed, but that OpenAI removed authorship and copyright information from their articles before feeding them to ChatGPT. Judge McMahon threw out the Raw Story case in November 2024, holding the outlets showed no concrete injury from the removal and so lacked Article III standing. Judge Rakoff reached the opposite conclusion in the Intercept case, sustaining the §1202(b)(1) removal claim against OpenAI while dismissing a distribution claim and all claims against Microsoft — an open split inside the same courthouse. McMahon rejected the outlets’ amended complaint in April 2025, and Raw Story and AlterNet took the standing question to the Second Circuit. The Intercept’s claim, meanwhile, moved into discovery, and the outlet joined the July 2026 sanctions motion against OpenAI.
Key developments
- 2024-02-28 — Raw Story and AlterNet — and, in a separate case, The Intercept — sue OpenAI in the S.D.N.Y. on DMCA copyright-management-information theories.
- 2024-11-07 — Judge McMahon dismisses the Raw Story/AlterNet case: no concrete harm from CMI removal, so no standing. Dismissal is without prejudice, with skepticism that amendment can cure it.
- 2025-02-20 — Judge Rakoff’s written opinion in the Intercept case (following a November 2024 bench ruling) sustains the §1202(b)(1) claim against OpenAI, finding the Intercept plausibly alleged intentional CMI removal; the distribution claim and the claims against Microsoft are dismissed.
- 2025-04 — McMahon rules the outlets’ amended complaint still fails to show concrete injury and denies further amendment, directing them to the appeals court.
- 2025-07-16 — Raw Story and AlterNet file their notice of appeal to the Second Circuit.
- 2025-10 — In appellate briefing, the outlets argue McMahon wrongly required dissemination of the stripped copies to establish standing. The appeal remains undecided.
Why it matters for training data
The CMI-removal theory is the cheapest door into AI litigation — no copyright registration required — and two SDNY judges split on whether it opens. The Second Circuit’s answer will decide whether dataset-cleaning pipelines that strip bylines and notices create standalone liability. Suppliers should document what metadata their pipelines preserve; buyers should ask for that documentation before ingesting.
Sources
- National Law Review: McMahon dismisses Raw Story’s DMCA claims
- Bloomberg Law: Raw Story to appeal dismissal
- Courthouse News: outlets urge Second Circuit to revive claims
- Loeb & Loeb: Intercept Media v. OpenAI ruling summary
Deeper analysis
Want data that clears this in diligence?
Whether you're building a model or sitting on an archive, the first conversation is short and specific.
Send a brief