Full Breakdown
Publishers Accuse OpenAI and Microsoft of Copyright Infringement in AI Training
By Drooid · · How we work
Core Lawsuit Overview
The New York Times and eleven other publishers have filed a federal lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that the companies trained large-language models on copyrighted articles without permission or compensation. The plaintiffs contend that the AI systems reproduce near-verbatim excerpts, thereby substituting the original news market.
Legal Context and Fair-Use Test
The case hinges on the four-factor fair-use analysis. Plaintiffs argue the use was commercial, non-transformative, and caused market harm. They cite Supreme Court precedent suggesting that an “evasive motive” undermines a fair-use defense.
Official Statements & Responses
OpenAI president Greg Brockman responded to the paywall-circumvention suggestion with “Ah nice.” OpenAI’s head of ChatGPT, Nick Turley, characterized the products as “largely substitutive, period.”
Data & Statistics
Internal Microsoft data show that click-through rates for The Times fell dramatically when users accessed content via Bing Chat rather than traditional web search, dropping between 87 % and 93 %. An exhibit in the filing documents a Bing Chat response that copied all but two of the first 396 words of a 2023 Times article, and a separate list cites 100 additional instances of near-verbatim replication.
Verbatim Quotes
- “Our products are largely substitutive, period,” — Nick Turley, OpenAI’s head of ChatGPT
