Why Cohere Matters
Cohere is one of the first major decisions to sustain a text-based output copying claim involving non-verbatim news summaries. For months, AI companies have pointed to Judge Stein’s dismissal of the CIR claims as proof that summary theories were DOA. Judge McMahon just showed the door is still very much open.
More broadly, Cohere continues a trend away from the abstract fight over AI training data to the more concrete issue of outputs. Whatever happens with fair use defenses around training, AI companies face real exposure when their outputs too closely mirror protected expression. For developers marketing news-oriented applications or research assistants, the message is clear: “summaries” aren’t a safe harbor but a fact-specific minefield requiring careful navigation.
A Tale of Two McMahon Rulings
It’s worth noting that Judge McMahon has now ruled on both ends of the AI-news spectrum. Last year I wrote about her dismissal of Raw Story Media v. OpenAI, where digital news outlets sued under the DMCA for removal of copyright management information. Without registered copyrights, they couldn’t bring infringement claims, only DMCA claims for CMI removal. And without evidence that ChatGPT actually disseminated their articles, they couldn’t show concrete harm for Article III standing. The case was dismissed.
The Cohere publishers learned from that failure. They came to court with registered copyrights, allowing them to bring full infringement claims. They also brought concrete examples of allegedly infringing outputs, and it was enough to allow their claims to proceed.
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