The New York Times sues OpenAI for copyright infringement

The New York Times sues OpenAI for copyright infringement

In the last week of December (27), the US newspaper The New York Times sued OpenAI and other technology companies involved in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) systems for copyright infringement. According to the newspaper, the accusation stems from the use of the protected content of millions of its articles to train AI models, in particular ChatGPT.

The New York Times is the first major media platform to sue a company that promotes artificial intelligence software for copyright infringements related to its written works. Last year, the image platform Getty Images sued the company Stability AI for copyright and trademark infringement for training its AI with images obtained without authorization from Getty’s database.

In the lawsuit, the newspaper accuses OpenAI of “audience theft”, claiming that users, instead of using the newspaper’s website directly, choose to access the news via ChatGPT. According to The New York Times, when users ask ChatGPT about news, facts or events, the tool responds based on data extracted from the newspaper, negatively impacting the original site’s online traffic.

In addition, the newspaper points out that the phenomenon known as “AI hallucinations” can also damage its reputation, exemplifying cases in which ChatGPT cited The New York Times as a source, but presented data that was not actually present in its articles.

On this point, the outlet argues that “these ‘hallucinations’ mislead users as to the source of the information they are obtaining, leading them to incorrectly believe that the information provided has been vetted and published by The Times. Users who ask a search engine what The Times has written on a subject should receive neither an unauthorized copy nor an inaccurate forgery of a Times article, but a link to the article itself.”

Thus, the lawsuit filed by The New York Times seeks to have the companies completely remove all language models that use texts protected by The Times Group, which controls the newspaper and other publications, based on Article 17, § 503(b) of the US Copyright Act.

The initial petition can be accessed via the link: https://nytco-assets.nytimes.com/2023/12/NYT_Complaint_Dec2023.pdf

Note: For quick release and cost control, this English version is provided by automated translation without human review.