The New York Times (NYT)’s ongoing legal battle with OpenAI took an unexpected turn on July 1st when OpenAI filed court documents requesting that the venerable publisher substantiate the originality of its articles by providing detailed source materials for each copyrighted work.
According to the NYT, OpenAI utilized its articles to train artificial intelligence (AI) models without seeking permission or offering compensation. OpenAI contends that its use of “scraped” internet materials is fair game.
OpenAI’s legal move was first reported by TorrentFreak, noting that on July 1st, lawyers representing OpenAI filed a request with a U.S. court in New York, asking the presiding judge to compel the New York Times “to provide discovery demonstrating the originality of the copyrighted works.”
The documents in question seem to encompass virtually every article published by the NYT that could potentially be found online.
Specifically, OpenAI is also seeking an order from the judge mandating that the NYT furnish comprehensive documentation detailing the authorship process for each article.
In response to OpenAI’s request, the New York Times’ legal team filed a response on July 3rd, expressing their opposition and urging the judge to dismiss the motion.
According to the lawyers representing the New York Times:
“The motion to dismiss essentially argues that the creation process of copyrighted material is irrelevant to its use in this particular case.”
As of July 4th, no additional documents had been released to the public. The outcome of how the judge will adjudicate these conflicting motions remains to be seen.
In related news, despite facing increased legal scrutiny, OpenAI recently finalized an agreement with Time magazine.