The case is seen as potentially historic in determining the relationship between generative AI and copyright law. IP and AI attorney Cecilia Ziniti has called the suit "historic", noting that it could be the best case yet alleging that generative AI is copyright infringement. She highlighted the issues of "access and substantial similarity" in the case, pointing out that OpenAI has established content agreements with other media outlets, but not with NYT, which could suggest an intentional disregard for certain intellectual property rights.
Key takeaways:
- The New York Times (NYT) has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft Corporation and OpenAI, alleging copyright infringement and unfair competition. The company claims that its copyrighted material was used without authorization to train the defendants' artificial intelligence models.
- The lawsuit alleges that Microsoft and OpenAI's AI tools, including Bing Chat and ChatGPT, were developed using large language models trained on millions of NYT’s copyrighted articles. The AI tools can allegedly generate outputs that closely mimic NYT's content.
- The NYT is seeking statutory damages, compensatory damages, restitution, permanent injunctions against further infringement, and destruction of all AI models and training sets incorporating its works.
- The case is seen as potentially historic in determining generative AI’s relationship to copyright law. IP and AI attorney Cecilia Ziniti called the suit “historic” and suggested it could be the best case yet alleging that generative AI is copyright infringement.