The New York Times (NYT) has taken legal action against technology giants Microsoft and OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT AI chatbot, for alleged extensive copyright infringement and misuse of the newspaper’s intellectual property.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, comes at a time when the ongoing debate over the unauthorised use of published content to train artificial intelligence (AI) models is on.
The NYT’s lawsuit accused Microsoft and OpenAI of engaging in a business model founded on “mass copyright infringement.” The heart of the matter lies in the alleged unlawful copying and utilisation of The Times’s substantial body of work to train large language models, including ChatGPT.
The lawsuit seeks “billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages” for the claimed infringement and emphasises the creation of AI systems that exploit and, in many cases, retain significant portions of copyrighted expression from NYT’s articles.
Microsoft, a key player in the lawsuit, invests in OpenAI and also supplies the company with access to its Azure cloud computing technology. This close relationship adds complexity to the legal dispute, raising questions about shared responsibilities and obligations.
The lawsuit points to a potential turning point in defining the legal boundaries surrounding generative AI technologies. As AI firms, including OpenAI, attract billions in funding, concerns about the uncompensated use of intellectual property have grown within creative industries. This case could set a precedent for how media organisations navigate agreements and protect their content at a time where AI models can replicate and reimagine written works.
OpenAI, currently valued at over $80 billion, has garnered significant attention and financial support, with Microsoft committing $13 billion to the company. The lawsuit implies that OpenAI and Microsoft, by utilisng The Times’s content without proper authorisation, aim to benefit from the newspaper’s substantial journalistic investment without due compensation.
The NYT’s legal action suggests that ChatGPT and other AI systems created by OpenAI and Microsoft could emerge as competitors in the news industry. The concern is that AI-generated responses, utilising copyrighted material from The Times, may divert readers away from the newspaper’s website, impacting advertising and subscription revenue.
The lawsuit follows unsuccessful negotiations between The Times, Microsoft, and OpenAI. The newspaper had reportedly approached the tech companies in April to address concerns about intellectual property use, seeking an amicable resolution involving potential commercial agreements and technological safeguards around AI products. However, these discussions reportedly reached an impasse, leading to the legal action.
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