As Nvidia becomes world’s largest company, it’s looking to dismiss a creator lawsuit about AI training rights

The generative AI boom has been kind to Nvidia, and the chip maker is looking to consolidate its gains by striking down a lawsuit against it. Mirroring other tech companies like Google and OpenAI, Nvidia has filed a motion to dismiss a legal challenge from a plaintiff who believes that generative AI training practices infringe on creator rights.

As explained by Law360, Nvidia, Google, and OpenAI are the targets of three nearly identical lawsuits filed in a California federal court. The man behind those cases is David Millette, a Massachusetts man who is seeking more than $5 million in damage for himself and his fellow creators. Millette’s initial suit argues that the defendants are engaging in “surreptitious, non-consensual transcription of millions of YouTube users’ videos” to train large language models like Google’s Gemini.

Of the companies targeted by Millette’s suits, OpenAI was the first to follow a motion to dismiss, followed by Google and Nvidia about two months later. Nvidia’s filing argued that Millette’s claims of unjust enrichment and unfair competition are superseded by the Copyright Act.

In addition, the big tech defendants are arguing that Millette has not shown that the defendants are causing him harm with their AI training practices. “The complaint offers no plausible basis to infer that Nvidia utilized Plaintiff’s videos to train its AI models,” reads the chip maker’s response.

Nvidia’s counter to Millette’s claim comes amidst a bull period for the Santa Clara-based tech company. Thanks to its leading position in the generative AI industry, Nvidia is now the largest company in the world, surpassing Apple.

The apparent holes in Millette’s suit make it hard to believe he will be able to successfully challenge defendants as big as Nvidia, Google, and OpenAI. But disputes between creators and large language model owners will come to a head one way or another. Creator criticisms of unregulated training data have become widespread, and Hollywood stars like Scarlett Johansson are also looking to hit back at AI limitations of their likeness.

Tech companies have repeatedly promised to do more to protect creators whose IP is repurposed to train AI models. It doesn’t look like Millette’s suit will be the catalyst that makes Big Tech follow through on those promises, but the plaintiff is drawing attention to the unchecked power of companies like Nvidia, which continue to grow bigger as AI competition heats up.