Google Appears Close to Narrowing Artists’ AI Training Suit (1)

Lawyers for Google LLC and artists accusing it of copyright infringement by training AI models on their work spent over an hour Wednesday arguing whether Google’s parent company should remain in the case and whether the suit should continue at all.

Judge Eumi K. Lee gave the parties her tentative order before the hearing. She indicated she’d likely allow some of the artists’ direct infringement claims to continue, while dismissing others along with vicarious infringement allegations against Alphabet Inc. Lee didn’t finalize the ruling during the hearing in San Jose, California.

Google in January moved to dismiss the case in ...