News Kleiner v Adobe AI Copyright 2026
Author Arthur Kleiner filed a proposed class action against Adobe Inc. on February 9, 2026, alleging the company used unlicensed copies of copyrighted works — including from the RedPajama dataset containing the Books3 corpus from the pirate site Bibliotik — to train its SlimLM small language models, in direct copyright infringement and DMCA circumvention.<ref name="copyright-feb">Copyright Alliance, "Copyright Stories — February 2026"</ref>
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (San Jose) as case number 5:26-cv-01218, specifically targets Adobe's SlimPajama-627B dataset, which the plaintiff claims retained pirated books even after "cleaning and deduplication." Kleiner's registered work The Age of Heretics was among the books allegedly used without permission.<ref name="copyright-feb"/>
The case highlights the contrast between Adobe's "ethical AI" marketing and its alleged use of "notorious" piracy-tainted data, and joins a growing wave of AI copyright litigation targeting model training practices.<ref name="jdsupra-trends">JD Supra, "AI Litigation Trends: Rapid Growth and Emerging Patterns," April 2026</ref>
As of late April 2026, the case is in its early stages with no rulings on motions to dismiss reported. Adobe is expected to seek dismissal arguing fair use or insufficient allegations of specific copying.
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