The lawsuit comes amid a growing copyright debate around generative AI. Other copyright holders, including actress Sarah Silverman and several novelists, have also sued OpenAI for using their work as training data without permission. Some news outlets have chosen to license their content to AI vendors instead of pursuing legal action. A recent poll showed that a majority of respondents agreed that AI companies should not use publisher content for model training without compensation.
Key takeaways:
- The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft for allegedly violating copyright law by training AI models on Times’ content, a claim which OpenAI denies.
- OpenAI argues that using publicly available data from the web, including news articles, for training AI models is fair use and does not require licensing or payment.
- OpenAI has been accused of 'regurgitation', where AI models reproduce training data verbatim, but the company places responsibility on users to avoid intentionally prompting its models to do so.
- Other copyright holders, including actress Sarah Silverman and several novelists, have also sued OpenAI over alleged IP rights violations, while some news outlets have chosen to license their content to AI vendors instead.