Apple Hit With AI Copyright Lawsuit Filed by ‘Lady Emily’ Author

Apple Inc. willfully infringed millions of copyrighted works to build its Apple Intelligence AI product, an author alleged Wednesday in a federal lawsuit.

Tasha Alexander accused Apple of downloading pirated copies of works to train AI models, consequently displacing and diluting the market for authors, in a proposed class action complaint filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

It is the third lawsuit filed against Apple since September over Apple Intelligence, joining complaints by State University of New York professors and other authors. The complaint is among the dozens of copyright lawsuits filed against AI companies and comes months after Anthropic PBC settled with authors and publishers for $1.5 billion over pirated book claims.

Alexander—a pseudonym for Anastasia Grant and the author of the Lady Emily Ashton book series—said Apple has acknowledged its use of datasets known to contain libraries of pirated books, including RedPajama, C4, and PILE.

“Authors invest years in creating these works, and intellectual property rights as old as our Constitution guarantee their right to compensation,” the complaint said.

Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP and Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP represent Alexander.

The case is Alexander v. Apple Inc., N.D. Cal., No. 25-cv-09090, complaint filed 10/22/25.