A federal judge has allowed a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by the New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft to proceed, rejecting a request to dismiss the case. Judge Sidney Stein of the Southern District of New York narrowed its scope but retained the main claims of copyright violation. The lawsuit, which also includes other publishers like the New York Daily News, argues that OpenAI illegally used newspaper content, particularly from the Times, to train its AI chatbot, ChatGPT.
OpenAI contends that its data scraping is protected under the legal doctrine of “fair use,” which permits certain uses of copyrighted materials without permission. The outcome of this case is significant for both the news industry and the future of AI technologies, as it raises questions about how AI systems gather and utilize data from the internet, potentially impacting revenue for news outlets. The legal back-and-forth will continue, with evidence collection to occur in secret and public hearings to address disputes ahead of a potential trial, for which no date has been set.
Legal representatives from the Times argue that the way OpenAI replicates their articles does not meet the criteria for fair use, while OpenAI’s lawyers maintain that the AI’s operation is not just a document search but a complex language model.
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