Raw Story Unable to Use OpenAI Case Merger to Revive IP Claims

Raw Story Media Inc. and AlterNet Media Inc. failed to convince a federal judge in New York to reconsider an earlier decision dismissing their copyright claims against OpenAI Inc.

Judge Sidney H. Stein, of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday said Raw Story and AlterNet could instead could pursue an appeal of the ruling. The decision is part of broader, consolidated copyright litigation against the artificial intelligence company.

Judge Colleen McMahon, also of the Southern District of New York, ruled in November that Raw Story and AlterNet lacked concrete injury to bring their lawsuit claiming OpenAI stripped their articles of copyright management information when it trained its AI model.

The same month, Stein went the opposite way and denied OpenAI’s motion to dismiss a key copyright claim in a similar case brought by Intercept Media Inc.

McMahon dismissed Raw Story and AlterNet’s amended complaint in April, saying their added details about how OpenAI uploaded their works into AI training sets weren’t enough to make their alleged harm any more concrete. The same day, the US Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation consolidated all the copyright cases against OpenAI for pretrial proceedings, bringing them before Stein.

The plaintiffs said in a filing in early June that OpenAI cited the inconsistent decisions as a reason to merge the cases, which is why they should be allowed to have their ruling reconsidered.

Although McMahon’s decision was inconsistent with the outcome of the other cases in the consolidated litigation, that inconsistency alone doesn’t justify reconsideration, Stein said.

The case transfer is a “procedural peculiarity that highlights a tension between Judge McMahon’s decision and this Court’s ruling on the same legal issue in other cases,” but the situation isn’t so “extraordinary” as to warrant relieving the plaintiffs from the dismissal ruling, Stein wrote. It’s not extraordinary for district judges to disagree on the outcome of a “contested legal issue,” he said.

The outlets instead should appeal the ruling to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and “following an appeal, the legal question answered differently by Judge McMahon and by this Court may be resolved and all claims in this multidistrict litigation will be governed by the Second Circuit’s determination,” Stein said.

Susman Godfrey LLP, Rothwell Figg Ernst & Manbeck PC, Loevy & Loevy, and Klaris Law are plaintiffs’ lead counsel in the consolidated copyright case.

Latham & Watkins LLP, Morrison & Foerster LLP, and Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP represent OpenAI.

The case is In re OpenAI, Inc., 2025 BL 211488, S.D.N.Y., No. 1:25-md-03143, 6/18/25.