This ruling is significant as it allows for a DMCA claim on behalf of digital publishers without copyright registrations to proceed against OpenAI. The Intercept's case is the only litigation by a news publisher, not tied to copyright infringement, to move past the motion-to-dismiss stage. Despite this, other digital news publishers seeking legal action against OpenAI, particularly for its use of their work to train ChatGPT, may face challenges due to the timing of a new rule allowing "news websites" to file articles in bulk with the U.S. Copyright Office.
Key takeaways:
- A New York federal judge has ruled that a key copyright violation claim by The Intercept against OpenAI will proceed in court.
- The claim alleges that OpenAI removed authorship information when it used The Intercept’s articles in the training data sets for its AI, potentially violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
- The judge dismissed all The Intercept’s claims against Microsoft, which has a significant investment in OpenAI.
- The decision allows for a DMCA claim on behalf of digital publishers who do not have copyright registrations to proceed against OpenAI.