The New York Times has taken legal action against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement related to the use of its articles in training artificial intelligence models. The lawsuit was filed in the Federal District Court in Manhattan.

The newspaper contends that millions of its articles were employed to train AI chatbots, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which now compete with The Times as sources of information.

“These bots compete with the content they are trained on,” Ian B. Crosby, partner and lead counsel at Susman Godfrey, which is representing The Times, told AP.

The lawsuit does not specify a precise monetary demand but insists that the defendants be held accountable for “billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages” resulting from the “unlawful copying and use of The Times’ uniquely valuable works.” Furthermore, it calls for destroying chatbot models and training data incorporating copyrighted material from The Times.

The Times is the first major American media organization to sue major AI creators over copyright issues associated with its written content. The newspaper reached out to Microsoft and OpenAI in April with its concerns about the use of its intellectual property and explore possible resolutions, including commercial agreements and technological safeguards around generative AI products. But the discussions did not result in an agreement, The Times reported.

OpenAI, valued at over $80 billion, and Microsoft, which invested $13 billion in OpenAI and incorporated its technology into its products, are at the center of this legal dispute.

An OpenAI spokeswoman, Lindsey Held, said in a statement that the company had been “moving forward constructively” in conversations with The Times and that it was “surprised and disappointed” by the lawsuit.
“We respect the rights of content creators and owners and are committed to working with them to ensure they benefit from A.I. technology and new revenue models,” Ms. Held said. “We’re hopeful that we will find a mutually beneficial way to work together, as we are doing with many other publishers.”

Microsoft declined to comment on the case.

“A Supreme Court decision is essentially inevitable,” Richard Tofel, a former president of the nonprofit newsroom ProPublica and a consultant to the news business, told The Times of the latest flurry of lawsuits currently against OpenAI. “Some of the publishers will settle for some period of time — including still possibly The Times — but enough publishers won’t that this novel and crucial issue of copyright law will need to be resolved.”

Gavel Photo by Sora Shimazaki: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-wooden-gavel-5668473/OpenAI Photo by Andrew Neel: https://www.pexels.com/photo/monitor-screen-with-openai-logo-on-black-background-15863044/Microsoft Photo by Salvatore De Lellis: https://www.pexels.com/photo/glass-panels-exterior-of-the-microsoft-building-9683980/The New York Times Photo by Vlada Karpovich: https://www.pexels.com/photo/the-new-york-times-building-with-glasses-4451740/