Apple was hit with a lawsuit in California federal court from a pair of neuroscientists who say the tech company misused thousands of copyrighted books to train its Apple Intelligence artificial intelligence model. Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen Macknik, professors at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University in Brooklyn, New York, told the court Thursday in a proposed class action that Apple used illegal “shadow libraries” of pirated books to train Apple Intelligence. A separate group of authors sued Apple last month for allegedly misusing their work in AI training.
TECH COMPANIES FACING LAWSUITS
The lawsuit is one of several high-stakes cases brought by copyright owners, such as authors, news media and music labels, against tech companies, including OpenAI, Microsoft and Meta Platforms, over the unauthorized use of their work in AI training. Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a lawsuit from another group of authors over the training of its AI-powered chatbot Claude in August.
Spokespeople for Apple and Martinez-Conde, Macknik and their attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the new complaint on Friday.
Apple Intelligence is a set of AI-powered features integrated into iOS devices, including the iPhone and iPad.
“The day after Apple officially introduced Apple Intelligence, the company gained more than $200 billion in value: ‘the most lucrative day in the company’s history,’” the lawsuit said.
According to the complaint, Apple used data sets consisting of thousands of pirated books and other copyright-infringing material scraped from the Internet to train its AI system.
The lawsuit said the pirated books included “Champions of Illusion: The Science Behind Mind-Boggling Images and Mystifying Brain Puzzles” by Martinez-Conde and Macknik and “Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals About Our Everyday Deceptions” by Martinez-Conde and Macknik.
The professors sought an unspecified amount of damages and an order for Apple to stop misusing their copyrighted work.
Published on October 11, 2025
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