OpenAI files copyright lawsuit against New York Times, alleging AI model hacking

OpenAI is seeking the dismissal of certain parts of The New York Times’ copyright lawsuit, alleging that the newspaper paid someone to manipulate its AI systems and generate misleading evidence. OpenAI claims that The NYT violated its terms of use by using deceptive prompts to reproduce its content. The company did not identify the individual involved to avoid accusations of violating anti-hacking laws. The NYT’s attorney argues that OpenAI’s claim of “hacking” is merely an attempt to find evidence of the alleged theft. The lawsuit, filed in December 2023, accuses OpenAI and Microsoft of unauthorized use of NYT articles to train chatbots. Similar lawsuits have been filed by other copyright holders, including authors, visual artists, and music publishers. OpenAI has previously stated that training advanced AI models without incorporating copyrighted works is impossible. Tech firms argue that their use of copyrighted material is fair and that these lawsuits threaten the growth of the industry. The courts have yet to determine if AI training is considered fair use under copyright law, and some infringement claims related to AI-generated content have been dismissed due to insufficient evidence of resemblance to copyrighted works.