OpenAI Faces Existential Threat in New York Times Copyright Suit
The New York Times Co.’s lawsuit claiming ChatGPT has produced near-verbatim text of published articles threatens to upend the foundation of the booming AI industry, as the creators of the chatbot fight their most consequential copyright battle to date.
The Times nearly 70-page complaint filed in Manhattan federal court argued OpenAI Inc. and partner Microsoft Corp. scraped millions of the newspaper s articles without a license. It alleged the chatbot output text virtually identical to published work after being provided the URL of the original article and a snippet of the beginning of the story text.
If the lawsuit is successful, OpenAI could have to pay billions of dollars in damages, and the Times is asking the court to order the destruction of any GPT or other models and training sets that incorporate the Times articles. The newspaper s evidence of memorization puts OpenAI in especially dangerous legal territory, attorneys specializing in copyright and technology issues said in interviews.
The Times isn t arguing ChatGPT is learning facts from the articles or emulating the writing style, said Kristelia García, a copyright law professor at Georgetown University.
They re saying it s spitting out exactly what was put into it, she said.