The New York Times, alongside the Daily News and other media outlets, is demanding a federal judge impose sanctions on OpenAI. They allege the ChatGPT maker is actively concealing evidence vital to a landmark copyright infringement trial. This legal confrontation exposes how global tech giants, including Microsoft, built their artificial intelligence systems using millions of news articles, fundamentally altering the national information ecosystem.
At the core of the dispute is whether AI chatbots unfairly compete as information sources. These systems siphon off web traffic, bypassing the journalistic work traditionally involved in gathering news. A filing submitted Thursday in a Manhattan federal courthouse claims OpenAI "chose obstruction" rather than releasing datasets and ChatGPT logs. These records could reveal the extent to which the AI system utilized copyrighted news content.
The Information Takeover
Plaintiffs are asking the judge to penalize OpenAI for "discovery misconduct," suggesting it could distort evidence. A recent deposition from an OpenAI employee reportedly contradicts the company's earlier claims. Steven Lieberman, an attorney for the New York Daily News, stated OpenAI has been "making misrepresentations" for about two years regarding its ability to search for copyrighted content within its AI training datasets and logs. "This motion asks the court to punish OpenAI for hiding and destroying evidence showing how ChatGPT was trained on stolen journalism," Lieberman asserted, representing the Daily News and seven of its sister papers.
OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri countered, describing limitations in sharing ChatGPT logs as a measure to protect user privacy. "As the Times' case weakens and they've been forced to drop claims against us, they're persisting with their efforts to invade the privacy of people who have nothing to do with this case, including by making these blatantly false allegations," Pusateri said Thursday. He added that the company will continue defending its users' privacy and the "long-established principles of fair use," a legal doctrine increasingly invoked by global tech firms to justify their data acquisition.
The New York Times initiated its lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft in late 2023, about three years ago. This came roughly a year after ChatGPT's debut ignited a commercial AI boom, rapidly changing how people search for information online. The threat to national news publications became starkly apparent about two years ago, when Google introduced AI-generated summaries at the top of online search results. This move directly cut off advertising dollars that traditionally flow when users click links to original information sources, accelerating the managed decline of traditional journalism.
Elite Complicity and Costs
Other news organizations have since joined the Times, including MediaNews Group-owned newspapers, the Chicago Tribune, digital media publisher Ziff Davis, and the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting. They stand against the encroachment of global tech. OpenAI and other tech companies argue that training their AI systems on digitized books, online articles, and other internet writings falls under the "fair use" doctrine of U.S. copyright law. This theory is now being tested in dozens of lawsuits, as visual artists, novelists, and music record labels also challenge AI companies in court.
In one notable case, OpenAI rival Anthropic agreed to pay book authors $1.5 billion for training its chatbot Claude on pirated works. This sum, though substantial, represents a mere fraction of Anthropic's $965 billion market valuation, even as it prepares for public trading. The New York Times' arguments diverge from those of book authors. Its original lawsuit and an amended complaint filed last month focused on the unfair competition posed by companies that "seek to free-ride on The Times's massive investment in its journalism by using it to build substitutive products without permission or payment."
The Legal Battle for National Information
The Times has already incurred over $28 million in litigation costs fighting AI companies, according to filings with financial regulators. These costs include another lawsuit filed last year against AI company Perplexity. Among the sanctions sought by the newspapers Thursday are attorney fees, intended to cover efforts to secure "improperly withheld" evidence. Meanwhile, a growing number of media organizations have signed licensing deals with OpenAI and other AI companies like Google and Facebook parent Meta. These agreements typically involve a fee paid to the outlet, allowing AI systems to train on their news feeds or archives. The Associated Press was the first to announce such a deal with OpenAI about three years ago, highlighting a split within the media establishment regarding collaboration with these globalist entities.