Motion to dismiss denied, discovery running, trial expected late 2026 or early 2027 — What authors should do now
The short answer: the consolidated OpenAI copyright litigation (In re OpenAI Copyright MDL, No. 1:25-md-03143, S.D.N.Y., Judge Sidney H. Stein) survived OpenAI's motion to dismiss, is deep in discovery, and is expected to reach trial in late 2026 or early 2027.
After Anthropic paid $1.5 billion to settle materially similar claims, the question every author asks is obvious: is a Bartz-style settlement coming here — and what would my works be worth if it does?
The multi-district litigation gathers major copyright actions against OpenAI (and Microsoft as co-defendant in several) before one judge in Manhattan — including The New York Times' suit and the Authors Guild-backed class claims for fiction and nonfiction authors, alongside other publisher and creator actions — in one coordinated proceeding. In June 2026, the New York Times amended its complaint to allege that Microsoft built dedicated supercomputing infrastructure specifically to exploit its content.
Judge Stein rejected OpenAI's argument at the motion to dismiss stage that AI training is inherently transformative fair use — the defense will be tested on evidence, not presumed. Discovery is underway (since spring 2026), with a trial date expected between late 2026 and early 2027. Discovery will bring to light exactly how OpenAI and Microsoft obtained the works for training.
Bartz settled at roughly $3,000 per work (4× the statutory minimum) across 482,460 books. OpenAI's alleged corpus and commercial scale are larger than Anthropic's so its potential headline exposure is correspondingly larger, but it doesn't guarantee a settlement or the same per-work rate. OpenAI has litigated where Anthropic has decided to settle, and with the law unsettled on fair use, there's no telling what path OpenAI will take.
In related case, Kadrey v. Meta, we saw that LLM training can win on a fair use argument (though piracy claims survived).
So what should authors do in the meantime?
1. Inventory your works — registrations, ISBNs. Know what your rights are under your publisher agreement. 2. Keep an eye on the cases that implicate your rights. Sites like the Author's Alliance and Author's Guild are tracking these as are we. Authors and publishers that want to be notified when any of these cases result in a settlement, can leave their details with our desk. 3. Cases take a long time to pay out. Consider selling your right to settlement proceeds if you prefer cash today.
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Turnpage Digital Markets is an independent claims desk — not a party to, or counsel in, the MDL. Trial timing and outcomes are inherently uncertain; nothing here predicts a settlement. This briefing is market intelligence, not legal or financial advice.
OpenAI, NYT, Authors Guild, MDL