Some Defendants and Claims Dismissed in Dispute Over Car Photos Allegedly Used for AI Training
One year ago, we reported on a case in which EVOX Productions LLC (“EVOX” or “Plaintiff”) sued The Leland Stanford Junior University (“Stanford”), William Marsh Rice University (“Rice”), Baylor College of Medicine (“Baylor”), and the University of Michigan (“Michigan”) for copyright infringement. The case concerns the alleged unauthorized use for AI training of photos of cars belonging to EVOX. On July 23, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued an Order granting Stanford’s motion to dismiss in part and denying it in part. The court denied Stanford’s Motion to Dismiss as it related to lack of standing, direct copyright infringement, and failure to comply with Rule 8(a), but granted Stanford’s motion to dismiss EVOX's contributory copyright infringement claim with leave to amend. The court also granted Rice and Baylor’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and dismissed EVOX’s claims against them without leave to amend.
Regarding the court’s reasoning, the court held that it lacked specific personal jurisdiction over Rice and Baylor because EVOX failed to show that those defendants had “expressly aimed” their alleged conduct at California (9). This is significant because, under federal law, the plaintiff bears the burden of establishing that the court has personal jurisdiction. To do so, a plaintiff must show that a nonresident defendant (1) committed an intentional act, (2) expressly aimed that act at the forum state, and (3) caused harm that the defendant knew was likely to be suffered in the forum state. All three elements must be satisfied. Although EVOX plausibly alleged that Rice and Baylor intentionally infringed its copyrights, it failed to show that their conduct was expressly aimed at California. EVOX argued that Rice and Baylor collaborated with Stanford to infringe its copyrights, but the court found that EVOX failed to plead facts supporting such collaboration, which was required to the second element of the jurisdictional test.
As to the direct infringement claim against Stanford, the court sided with EVOX, finding that EVOX plausibly alleged that Stanford reproduced, distributed, and publicly displayed EVOX’s images on its website. As a result, dismissal of that claim was inappropriate at this stage.
Following the court’s order, EVOX filed an Amended Complaint, and Stanford filed another Motion to Dismiss.
In a Second Amended Complaint, EVOX sought to cure the deficiencies identified by the court. EVOX restructured its contributory infringement claim by separating its theory into material contribution and inducement, added allegations that Stanford could have prevented third-party infringement through access controls, and included new factual assertions regarding the purpose and distribution of the datasets. Defendants responded by filing a renewed Motion to Dismiss with a Supporting Memorandum arguing that the amended allegations remained conclusory, failed to plead specific intent or substantial assistance, and did not plausibly allege direct infringement by third parties.
As a result, the case continues through successive rounds of motion practice. Unless the parties reach a settlement, which appears unlikely at this stage, the litigation is likely to continue for some time before the court reaches a final resolution. We will continue to update this case as more substantive developments occur.