The lawsuits, initiated by The New York Times in December 2023, have expanded to include other publishers, who allege unauthorized scraping of their content for AI training. The Center for Investigative Reporting has also filed a lawsuit, which OpenAI labeled as "copycat" cases. Prior to litigation, The New York Times sought to negotiate a licensing agreement with OpenAI. Meanwhile, Microsoft, a major investor in AI, reports significant business growth as it continues to expand its AI capabilities.
Key takeaways:
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- Microsoft and OpenAI are defending their use of online news content for AI training against lawsuits from news organizations claiming copyright infringement.
- The companies argue that the lawsuits are untimely and that their use of news data is protected by the fair use doctrine.
- The New York Times and other publishers claim their content was scraped without permission and used extensively in AI model training.
- The judge emphasized that the fair use issue is central to the case, and the lawsuits have expanded to include additional news organizations.