New York Times sues Microsoft and OpenAI for ‘Billion Dollars’ infringing copyrighted work

A groundbreaking legal move against Artificial Intelligence vs. Media Organizations has gained new momentum with The New York Times (NYT) lawsuit against OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research lab, and tech giant Microsoft, alleging that they have infringed upon the newspaper’s copyrighted content. 

NYT has filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court of Manhattan, accusing OpenAI and Microsoft of unlawfully using copyrighted text from The New York Times to train their advanced AI models without proper authorization. The NYT has also alleged that this violates copyright law and undermines the integrity and value of the journalism industry. 

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This is not the first time that the journalism and research industries have raised concerns about the infringement and usage of copyrighted content by artificial intelligence companies in training generative AI models. Earlier, many instances had been reported by many media agencies and research institutes. But this latest lawsuit by NYT on OpenAI and Microsoft has questioned the process of training AI models based on unlawful scanning of published research articles without giving due credit. 

“Content generated by AI that leverages our copyrighted work without consent diminishes the respect for and value of the intellectual property that is the lifeblood of journalism and the creative industries,” said A.G. Sulzberger, Chairman of The New York Times. “This lawsuit is about standing up for our rights and ensuring that our content is used in a way that respects the hard work that goes into producing it.”

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OpenAI, known for its innovative AI models like ChatGPT and DALL-E, has been the leading generative AI model for developing technologies that can write and create content that closely resembles human learning. Microsoft, an investor in OpenAI, has integrated some of these capabilities into their products, further complicating the legal landscape.

Why NYT filed a legal case against OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement:

Allegations by NYT on OpenAI and Microsoft: The lawsuit claims that OpenAI and Microsoft Large Language Models (LLMs) generate content by replicating NYT articles by summarising text, data and images on any given queries through simple prompts. This has led NYT to lose crucial revenue streams, including subscriptions, licensing, advertising, and affiliate income as they lost user retention and engagement. 

Impact and Threat to Investigative Journalism and Reporting: The Times alleges that the emergence of these AI technologies poses a risk to the quality of journalism. The AI-enabled tools like Microsoft’s Bing Chat, recently rebranded as ‘Copilot’, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, eroding the credibility of media organizations by serving collated information without verifying the facts and figures. The catering of information without information validation and research hampers the overall readers’ knowledge base. Also, the majority of AI-enabled tools are open source so they offer information free of cost which ultimately hampers the readers’ engagement of reputed news agencies and research firms. 

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Legal Action and Lawsuit File for Compensation of Damages Caused: NYT has filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court in Manhattan. The compensation damage demands filed against OpenAI and Microsoft and the company has asked to be held accountable for copyright infringement. The NYT publication seeks “billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages” for allegedly using its content to build substitute products without permission or compensation. The newspaper company claims that OpenAI has infringed on its copyright for articles and allows users to bypass its paywalled online product. 

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Source and Credit: Financial Expres Editorial Coverage 

New York Times lawsuit excerpts against OpenAI

• The New York Times filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, the firm behind the ChatGPT product.
• OpenAI’s chatbot was built with data scrapped from across the internet and delivers customizable responses to user queries.
• The New York Times had reached out to OpenAI to strike a deal for licensing its content, but efforts have not produced a resolution.
• The newspaper company claims that OpenAI has infringed on its copyright for articles and allows users to bypass its paywalled online product.

Both OpenAI and Microsoft have yet to release detailed responses to the allegations. The tech community and legal experts are watching closely, as the results of this case could influence the balance between innovation in AI and the protection of intellectual property rights.

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