OpenAI Faces Lawsuit Over Copyright Infringement in AI Training
The New York Times alleges OpenAI copied millions of copyrighted articles to train AI models, knowing its technology posed a "survival threat" to publishers, seeking billions in damages.
OpenAI is facing a lawsuit alleging it copied millions of copyrighted articles to train its artificial intelligence models, despite knowing its technology posed a "survival threat" to publishers. The lawsuit, filed by The New York Times, seeks billions of dollars in damages from OpenAI and co-defendant Microsoft.
The core issue of the case is whether OpenAI and Microsoft violated copyright law by using publishers' content to train their AI models. Lawyers for The New York Times claim OpenAI acted out of commercial interest, extensively copying the newspaper's content. They cite OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman's 2017 remark about being deeply driven by "astronomical riches" expected from commercializing the company's technology.
The lawsuit presents new evidence, including internal communications. The head of ChatGPT reportedly wrote that AI products pose a "survival threat" to publishers and are "in large part substitutive," a substitutability that will increase as models improve. A Microsoft employee is also quoted as describing the use of copyrighted content for AI training as "an astonishing theft on a scale not seen before."
OpenAI maintains that using publicly available content for AI model training constitutes "fair use" under copyright law, similar to how search engines operate. The company argues its large language models transform original content rather than copy it, and that they do not serve as replacements for original publications. However, The New York Times contends that OpenAI repeatedly copied millions of articles to develop commercial AI products capable of replacing original material.
The suit also accuses OpenAI of circumventing paywalls without permission. When an employee informed Brockman of a "way to get around The New York Times paywall," he allegedly responded, "Ah, good." While Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella testified that he would have demanded OpenAI retrain its models if aware of paywall circumvention, Microsoft later clarified his comments concerned broad principles and not a definitive stance on copyright.