OpenAI and Microsoft accuse plaintiffs' lawyers of hiding funded research and laundering it into consolidated copyright case

What happened: In a filing made on 23 September 2026 (reported 25 September), OpenAI and Microsoft accused Susman Godfrey -- counsel for the class plaintiffs in the consolidated AI copyright litigation that includes the New York Times case -- of secretly paying Stony Brook professor Tuhin Chakrabarty $100,000 for research on 'how AI generated books dilute the market for human authors,' concealing that funding from the defendants and the court, and then laundering the resulting non-peer-reviewed working paper into the case through a supplemental report by a different expert after expert-report deadlines had passed. They asked the court to strike the paper and the supplemental report, arguing the maneuver may constitute fraud on the court. The Chakrabarty paper is the plaintiffs' key evidence on the market-dilution prong of the fair use defense -- the exact evidentiary gap judges previously flagged in the Anthropic and Meta cases.

Why it matters to creators: This challenges the credibility of the main academic evidence offered against fair use for AI training. If struck, plaintiffs lose their flagship market-harm study just as courts weigh the 'effect on the market' factor in training-data disputes.

What is not yet known: This is one side's filing; the court has not ruled on the motion to strike, and the plaintiffs' response and any sanctions determination are pending.