The lawsuit filed by The New York Times against Microsoft and OpenAI alleges that these tech giants utilized the newspaper’s content to develop AI services, underscoring the escalating conflict between the media industry and transformative technologies. The complaint, lodged in New York, asserts that Microsoft and OpenAI trained AI models such as ChatGPT using a vast corpus of copyrighted articles, resulting in significant financial losses and legal repercussions amounting to billions of dollars. However, The Times did not specify the exact financial damages sought in this legal action.
Representatives from Microsoft and OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comments regarding the lawsuit. OpenAI, which has faced criticism for extensively scraping online text to train its popular chatbot, has now encountered its first major legal challenge from a prominent media entity. The company has previously engaged in licensing agreements with publishers akin to strategies employed by tech giants like Google and Facebook under Alphabet Inc.
OpenAI has inked deals with notable entities such as the Associated Press and Axel Springer SE to access their content libraries for AI training purposes. Despite attempts by The Times to negotiate with Microsoft and OpenAI in April, no mutually agreeable resolution was reached, leading to the initiation of legal proceedings.
Various content providers have lodged complaints against OpenAI, alleging improper use of their materials for AI training. Notable personalities like Sarah Silverman, author George R. R. Martin, and artist Michael Chabon have taken legal action against the company for allegedly misappropriating their work.
Legal battles stemming from these disputes are expected to be protracted, with a San Francisco prosecutor suggesting a potential reduction in Silverman’s complaint against OpenAI. A similar lawsuit against Meta had already undergone narrowing by the presiding judge.
In a separate development, OpenAI is reportedly in talks with investors for fresh funding at a valuation of $100 billion, positioning it as the second-most valuable startup in the U.S. Microsoft, a key supporter of OpenAI, has integrated the company’s AI technologies into various products. The lawsuit by The New York Times accuses Microsoft of leveraging OpenAI’s technology to enhance its market value by a trillion dollars and replicating the newspaper’s content verbatim for its Bing search engine.
Following the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, Microsoft’s stock price surged by 55%, propelling its market capitalization to \(2.8 trillion. As of Wednesday morning, Microsoft’s shares experienced a marginal decline to \)373.38 in New York trading hours.
A director from The New York Times emphasized in a statement that both Microsoft and OpenAI are obligated to seek permission before utilizing the newspaper’s content for commercial purposes, a protocol allegedly overlooked by the tech entities.
