What happened

Cohere allegedly reproduced portions or entire copies of articles in response to user queries as part of a "massive, systematic” infringement of copyright.

The company also stands accused of "hallucinating" content that wasn’t published by the publishers, and falsely attributing it in their name.

The plaintiffs, including Condé Nast, The Atlantic and Forbes, argue Cohere's activities damage their ability to attract web traffic and subscription revenue, and are seeking damages of up to USD 150,000 per infringed work. 

They also demand a court order forcing Cohere to destroy all copyrighted material in its possession.

Why it happened

Cohere responded by saying that it "strongly stands by its practices for responsibly training its enterprise AI" and dismissed the lawsuit "misguided and frivolous". 

The lawsuit is part of a broader trend of legal battles between copyright owners and AI companies over the use of copyrighted material in training large language models.