New York Times sues Microsoft, OpenAI

NYT said the fair use argument shouldn't apply because the AI tools can serve up large chunks of text from articles

- Alexandra Bruell

The New York Times sued Microsoft and OpenAI for alleged copyright infringement, touching off a legal fight over generative AI technologies with far-reaching implications for the future of the news publishing business.

In a complaint filed Wednesday, the Times said the technology companies exploited its content without permission to create their AI products, including OpenAI's humanlike chatbot ChatGPT and Microsoft's Copilot. The tools were trained on millions of pieces of Times content, the suit said, and draw on that material to serve up answers to users' prompts.

The suit opens a new front in a yearslong battle between tech and media companies over the economics of the internet, pitting one of the news industry's biggest players against pioneers of a new wave of artificial intelligence technologies. It comes after months of commercial negotiations between the companies failed to produce a deal, according to the Times.

In its complaint, the Times said it believes it is among the largest sources of proprietary information for OpenAI and Microsoft's AI products. Their AI tools divert traffic that would otherwise go to the Times' web properties, depriving the company of advertising, licensing and subscription revenue, the suit said.

The Times is seeking damages, in addition to asking the court to stop the tech companies from using its content and to destroy data sets that include the Times' work.

"Times journalism is the work of thousands of journalists, whose employment costs hundreds of millions of dollars per year," the Times said in its complaint. "Defendants have effectively avoided spending the billions of dollars that The Times invested in creating that work by taking it without permission or compensation." 

The Times has asked for a jury trial in the suit, which was filed in U.S. federal court in the Southern District of New York.