OpenAI Fights Back: The New York Times Accused of Misusing AI in Copyright Clash

OpenAI asserts that The New York Times used "deceptive prompts" to induce ChatGPT to regurgitate its content in a motion filed on Monday. The company is petitioning the U.S. District Court in southern New York to dismiss several of the allegations in the outlet's copyright infringement lawsuit, citing this and additional grounds.

Exploiting A.I.: The New York Times' Unconventional Methods Spark Legal Firestorm

According to the organization, the Times allegedly exploited a flaw that OpenAI addresses by feeding articles directly to the chatbot to induce it to recite exact passages. "Normal people do not use OpenAI's products this way," the organization asserts, referencing an April 2023 New York Times article entitled "35 Ways Real People Are Using A.I. Right Now." All this closely resembles the arguments presented by OpenAI in its January public response.

In an email to The Verge, Times chief counsel Ian Crosby stated that referring to the outlet's actions as a "hack" would be an erroneous characterization and that the outlet was conducting hacking. "Simply using OpenAI's products to look for evidence that they stole and reproduced The Times's copyrighted works," he said. "It copied Times works without permission within the statute of limitations."

In December, The New York Times filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI, alleging that the two companies trained their A.I. models on its content so that their chatbots could replicate the articles verbatim. The publication asserts that this compromises its consumer relationship and results in revenue loss.

Legal Battles Intensify: OpenAI's Stand Against The New York Times Allegations

OpenAI intends to contest a portion of the Times' direct copyright infringement count " to the extent it is based on acts of reproduction that occurred more than three years before this action." Additionally, the petition requests that the court reject the allegations: OpenAI's alleged contribution to the infringement, its alleged failure to remove infringing information, and its alleged creation of unequal competition through misappropriation.

In addition, the lawsuit filed by The Times includes allegations of trademark dilution, unjust competition by misappropriation under common law, and vicarious copyright infringement. In a lawsuit by Sarah Silverman and other authors, OpenAI similarly reduced the number of complaints to a single direct copyright infringement claim.

Despite the potential success of its bid and this one, A.I. companies are not the sole subjects of litigation. Currently, startups such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Stability A.I. are confronted with an ever-expanding labyrinth of legal action, some of which originates from seasoned and litigious organizations that have fought copyright battles for decades. The cases, as recently discussed by Nilay Patel and Sarah Jeong of The Verge on the Decoder podcast, can disrupt or destroy the emerging industry.

Photo: Jonathan Kemper/Unsplash