Michael Hiltzik: Who's really winning in Sarah Silverman's copyright suit against OpenAI?

If you've been following the war between authors and the purveyors of AI chatbots over whether the latter are infringing the copyrights of the former, you might have concluded that comedian and author Sarah Silverman and several fellow authors suffered a crushing blow in their lawsuit against OpenAI, the leading bot maker.

In his ruling Feb. 12, federal Judge Areceli Martínez-Olguín of San Francisco indeed tossed most of the copyright claims Silverman et. al had brought against OpenAI in lawsuits filed last year.

That's the way much of the press portrayed the outcome: "Judge dismisses most of Sarah Silverman's copyright infringement lawsuit" (VentureBeat). And "OpenAI Scores Court Victory" (Forbes). And "Sarah Silverman, Authors See Most Claims Against OpenAI Dismissed by Judge" (Hollywood Reporter).

Well, not really. Of the six counts in the authors' lawsuit, one — whether OpenAI directly