Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube, faces a shareholder lawsuit targeting its leaders over the use of copyrighted material and voice recordings to develop artificial intelligence. Shareholder Phil Rosen filed the complaint in Chicago federal court on October 30 against Sundar Pichai, Larry Page, Sergey Brin and ten other directors and executives. The suit alleges that they permitted a strategy of using protected works without securing the necessary permissions, exposing Alphabet to litigation and financial losses. Its music allegations cover recordings, compositions and lyrics allegedly used to develop models including Lyria and MusicLM.
Rosen brought the case on Alphabet’s behalf, meaning any recovery would go to the company. He seeks damages from its leaders, the return of compensation and changes to oversight of copyright and biometric-data compliance. The case extends the AI-training dispute into corporate governance: whether executives and directors should bear responsibility for the risks associated with how their companies obtain training material. The complaint’s allegations remain unresolved, and it does not specify a damages amount.
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