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Chicken Soup for the Soul LLC v Meta Platforms Inc

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Case Information
Case name Chicken Soup for the Soul, LLC v. Meta Platforms Inc.[1]
Court U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California[1]
Docket 3:26-cv-02333-VC (TSH)[1]
Filed March 17, 2026[2]
Judge(s) Vince Chhabria (district judge); Thomas S. Hixson (discovery magistrate judge)[3]
Plaintiffs Chicken Soup for the Soul, LLC[1]
Defendants Meta Platforms, Inc.; OpenAI and Anthropic are nonparties to the September 10 subpoena disputes[1]
Case type Civil copyright action[1]
Claims / issues Copyright and AI training; nonparty discovery concerning Meta’s asserted fair-use defense[1]
Status September 10, 2026: motions to compel OpenAI and Anthropic denied. This discovery order does not decide the underlying copyright claims.[1]

Chicken Soup for the Soul, LLC v. Meta Platforms Inc. is a copyright action in the Northern District of California, filed March 17, 2026. The docket records an April 10 severance order and identifies Meta as the defendant.[2]

On September 10, 2026, Magistrate Judge Thomas S. Hixson denied the plaintiffs’ motions to compel nonparties OpenAI and Anthropic in this and two other Meta actions. The order resolves those subpoena disputes, not the merits of the copyright claims.[1]

September 10, 2026 discovery ruling

The plaintiffs sought documents and corporate testimony on literary-output capabilities, book licensing and torrenting practices to support their arguments concerning Meta’s fair-use defense. The requests included ChatGPT and Claude model evidence.[1]

Hixson found that the plaintiffs had not adequately connected the other companies’ model capabilities to Meta’s alleged market harm, given differences in product development. He also found the requests too broad in light of their uncertain relevance. For licensing discovery, he applied the reasoning discussed in Kadrey and Bartz. The torrenting requests likewise failed on relevance and proportionality grounds.[1]

In a separate September 10 status-report order, Hixson identified September 11 as the deadline for fact-discovery motions and permitted parties to submit their own portion of a discovery letter if the opponent did not cooperate. He stated that only District Judge Chhabria could grant Meta’s requested extension to September 18 for a motion against Cognella. That order did not itself grant the extension.[3]

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 N.D. Cal., discovery order in Nos. 26-cv-02333, 26-cv-03725 and 26-cv-04053, September 10, 2026, pp. 1–9 (Chicken Soup ECF 131).
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 N.D. Cal., Chicken Soup v. Meta, docket entries for March 17, April 10 and May 11, 2026, reproduced by Justia.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 N.D. Cal., discovery status-report order, September 10, 2026, pp. 1–2 (Entrepreneur Media ECF 150).
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