The New York Times has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft over alleged copyright infringement, accusing the companies of using millions of its articles without permission to train their AI chatbots.
The lawsuit was filed in a US federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday, claiming that OpenAI and Microsoft’s powerful AI models utilized the newspaper’s content for training without authorization. The Times argues that these copyright violations could amount to billions of dollars in damages. The lawsuit further asserts that the companies’ actions have undermined the Times’s ability to compete by using its work to develop AI products that directly compete with traditional journalism.
According to the lawsuit, OpenAI and Microsoft are “free-riding” on the Times’s extensive investment in journalism by using its content to create AI tools without providing compensation. The Times is seeking damages and a court order to halt the use of its content, as well as to destroy any data already collected.
A Confrontational Approach
In its legal action, The New York Times has taken a more direct approach compared to other media organizations that have entered content agreements with OpenAI, such as Germany’s Axel Springer and The Associated Press. Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI, has incorporated AI features into its products since the release of ChatGPT last year.
OpenAI’s models, including ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot, were trained using publicly available content under the assumption that using it didn’t require compensation. However, the Times’s lawsuit contends that this practice threatens its ability to provide high-quality journalism.
A spokesperson for the newspaper emphasized that these AI tools rely on independent journalism—work that comes at a high cost and requires expert editorial efforts. The Times reached out to both Microsoft and OpenAI in April, hoping to resolve the matter and secure fair compensation. However, no agreement was reached, leading to the lawsuit.
Content Mimicking and False Claims
The Times claims that content generated by ChatGPT and Copilot closely resembles its style, and that its material was given special treatment in developing the chatbot technology. It also alleges that false information generated by the AI tools was incorrectly attributed to The New York Times.
Growing Legal Challenges Against AI Companies
The New York Times joins a growing number of authors and publishers challenging AI companies for the use of copyrighted material. In 2023, author George RR Martin and other prominent fiction writers filed a class-action lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the company of using their work without permission to train ChatGPT.
In June, over 4,000 writers signed a letter to the CEOs of major AI companies, accusing them of exploitative practices by creating AI tools that “mimic and regurgitate” their intellectual property. In a similar vein, Universal Music and other publishers have filed lawsuits against Anthropic, accusing the AI firm of using copyrighted music lyrics to train its systems.
Additionally, Getty Images has accused Stability AI of profiting from its images without permission, using them to generate original visual content via AI. With a rising tide of lawsuits, Microsoft and Google have promised to offer legal protection to users facing copyright infringement lawsuits related to AI-generated content.
Regulation and Global Response
In response to the growing legal challenges, policymakers have started to address AI regulation. The European Union has introduced landmark legislation requiring companies to disclose the data used to train AI systems, especially in high-risk fields like healthcare and autonomous vehicles. Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden issued an executive order in October addressing the national security and ethical implications of AI, while China has implemented regulations that require AI systems to reflect “socialist core values.”
