Full Breakdown
Sanction Motion Raises New Allegations in Times vs. OpenAI Copyright Fight
7/11/2026, 12:35:25 AM
Core Allegations and Court Filing
On a Thursday in 2026, the New York Times, Daily News, Center for Investigative Reporting, The Intercept and Ziff Davis (CNET parent) filed a 52-page motion for sanctions in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs contend that OpenAI concealed for more than two years its ability to search the training datasets and ChatGPT output logs used to build its models, and that it deleted logs in violation of court-ordered preservation. They ask the judge to impose sanctions, award attorneys’ fees and order any additional relief the court deems appropriate.
Background of the Litigation
The New York Times first sued OpenAI and Microsoft in late 2023, alleging copyright infringement for training ChatGPT on its articles. In 2024, Daily News, Center for Investigative Reporting and Ziff Davis filed separate suits with similar claims. By the first quarter of 2026 the Times had spent more than $28 million on litigation, including $4.2 million in that quarter alone. The lawsuits occur amid a broader wave of copyright actions against generative-AI firms and growing concern that AI-generated summaries siphon web traffic and advertising revenue from news sites.
Key Participants
- Ian B. Crosby – Lead counsel for the Times, partner at Susman Godfrey.
- Steven Lieberman – Attorney for Daily News and its sister papers.
- Vinnie Monaco – Head of privacy engineering at OpenAI, whose February deposition allegedly revealed internal searches of training data.
- Drew Pusateri – OpenAI spokesperson quoted in multiple filings.
Data and Technical Claims
Plaintiffs allege OpenAI internally searched its corpus for copyrighted news content despite earlier statements that such searches were “infeasible, burdensome, and invasive of users’ privacy.” They cite testimony that OpenAI built a database of roughly 78 million de-identified ChatGPT conversations and deployed a “Bloom” filter under “Project Giraffe” to flag regurgitated content. The plaintiffs originally requested a sample of 120 million chat logs; the request was later reduced to 20 million, which OpenAI submitted in December 2025 but was described as “heavily redacted” and “unusable.”
Potential Impact on Media and AI
If the court finds that OpenAI deliberately withheld evidence, the decision could weaken the company’s fair-use defense and set a precedent for discovery practices in intellectual-property disputes involving AI. A ruling favoring the publishers may compel AI developers to increase transparency about training data and could reshape licensing negotiations between news organizations and technology firms.
Official Statements & Responses
OpenAI’s spokesperson asserted that the Times is “persisting with their efforts to invade the privacy of people who have nothing to do with this case, including by making these blatantly false allegations,” and pledged to “continue defending our users’ privacy and the long-established principles of fair use.” The plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that the requested sanctions are a proper exercise of the court’s inherent authority and a deterrent to similar conduct.
Criticism & Opposition
The plaintiffs characterize OpenAI’s conduct as “obstruction” and accuse the company of “compressing and deleting billions of conversation logs.” They maintain that OpenAI’s claims of technical impossibility were deceptive, undermining the discovery process and inflating litigation costs for the news industry.
Conflicting Reports & Gaps
Sources differ on the extent of the alleged log deletions: some filings allege billions of logs were removed, while other reports note only that the submitted sample was “heavily redacted.” The precise capabilities of OpenAI’s internal search tools are contested; the company asserts privacy constraints, whereas the plaintiffs cite Monaco’s deposition as proof of prior searches. No independent audit of the claimed 78 million-record database has been disclosed.
Verbatim Quotes
- “Instead of just producing that evidence at the start of the case and focusing on the merits of its fair use defense, OpenAI chose obstruction,” — Plaintiffs’ attorneys, filing
- “Each of the remedies requested is an appropriate exercise of this Court’s inherent authority and necessary both in response to OpenAI’s misconduct and as a deterrent to those who might contemplate following their example,” — Plaintiffs’ attorneys, filing
- “This motion asks the court to punish OpenAI for hiding and destroying evidence showing how ChatGPT was trained on stolen journalism,” — Steven Lieberman
- “OpenAI misled the Court and News Plaintiffs regarding its existing technical capacity all while continuing to compress and delete billions of conversation logs,” — Plaintiffs’ filing
- “If OpenAI genuinely believed that copying our clients’ journalism was fair and legal, it wouldn’t have hid the truth about having done it.” — Ian B. Crosby
- “We’ll continue defending our users’ privacy and the long-established principles of fair use.” — Drew Pusateri, OpenAI spokesperson
What’s Next
The motion for sanctions is pending before the Manhattan federal judge. The court’s ruling on the discovery dispute will determine whether OpenAI’s 20-million-log sample can be admitted and whether additional penalties will be imposed, shaping the trajectory of the broader copyright battle between publishers and generative-AI developers.
