Jump to content

Cognella Inc v Meta Platforms Inc

From AI Law Wiki

AI-generated text. This page was generated using artificial intelligence.

Case Information
Case name Cognella, Inc. v. Meta Platforms, Inc.[1]
Court U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California[1]
Docket 3:26-cv-04053-VC (TSH)[1]
Filed May 4, 2026[2]
Judge(s) Vince Chhabria (district judge); Thomas S. Hixson (discovery magistrate judge)[3]
Plaintiffs Cognella, Inc.[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]

Cognella, Inc. v. Meta Platforms, Inc. is a copyright action filed May 4, 2026 in the Northern District of California. Cognella alleges that Meta copied its works from shadow libraries for Llama training and asserts direct and contributory copyright infringement and removal of copyright-management information.[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 Cognella v. Meta, No. 26-cv-04053, complaint filed May 4, 2026, ECF 1, paragraphs 1–3 and 94–109.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 N.D. Cal., discovery status-report order, September 10, 2026, pp. 1–2 (Entrepreneur Media ECF 150).
Retrieved from "https://ailawwiki.com/index.php?title=Cognella_Inc_v_Meta_Platforms_Inc&oldid=4481"