Court Strikes Susman Godfrey Report in OpenAI Copyright MDL

A federal judge has granted a motion by OpenAI and Microsoft to exclude an expert report allegedly funded by plaintiffs’ counsel Susman Godfrey LLP in the multidistrict copyright infringement litigation. The court determined that the funding arrangement compromised the report’s independence, rendering it inadmissible as evidence. This decision represents a significant procedural victory for the defense in the sprawling case concerning unauthorized use of copyrighted works for AI training. Plaintiffs had relied on the analysis to support claims of systemic infringement across large language model development. The exclusion forces the remaining plaintiffs to restructure their evidentiary strategy without this specific technical assessment. Legal analysts note that the ruling establishes stricter scrutiny for third-party funding disclosures in complex technology disputes. Both OpenAI and Microsoft denied wrongdoing throughout the proceedings. Susman Godfrey has not publicly commented on the court’s adverse finding regarding its financial involvement.