Investigative journalist John Carreyou from the New York Times, known for exposing the Theranos fraud, has filed a lawsuit against several leading technology companies in the AI sector. Reuters reports on this development.

In the complaint, he and five other authors accuse xAI, Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Meta, and Perplexity of using their books to train language models without consent.

The lawsuit addresses copyright infringement and is filed individually rather than as a class action, as the plaintiffs aim to prevent devaluation of their claims through mass settlements. The document states that AI companies should not have the ability to easily dismiss thousands of valuable claims at minimal rates.

This marks the first instance where xAI is listed among defendants in such a case. A representative from Perplexity commented to Reuters that the company does not index books. Previously, Anthropic was also a defendant in a large class action lawsuit from half a million authors, which concluded with a $1.5 billion settlement.

In the complaint, Carreyou and the other writers reference this previous case, emphasizing that participants in that settlement received only about 2% of the maximum compensation allowed under copyright law – $150,000 for each infringement.

The year 2025 has been significant for lawsuits against AI companies. Various rights holders, from major studios like Disney and Warner Bros. to social platforms like Reddit, have filed suits. Some cases have ended in settlement agreements, including a licensing deal between Disney and OpenAI.