In a new legal development illustrating the evolving relationship between the media and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, The New York Times Co. has launched a lawsuit against Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI Inc. The renowned media organization accuses the tech giants of using its copyrighted content to aid the advancement of AI services, specifically chatbots and other AI features.
The allegations, filed in New York, claim that the misuse of millions of copyrighted articles has resulted in billions of dollars in both statutory and actual damages. This lawsuit comes amidst an increasing trend of media organizations protecting their intellectual property rights in the face of AI development.
Over the past year, OpenAI has faced backlash for extensively scraping web text to train its popular chatbot, ChatGPT. This practice has not only drawn criticism but also landed the company in court. The company now faces its first legal challenge from a major media organization, despite earlier lawsuits from prominent authors.
While OpenAI has initiated licensing conversations with publishers in a similar vein to Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook, The Times alleges that it was unable to reach a satisfactory resolution with Microsoft and OpenAI after engaging them in April.
Notably, this news comes as OpenAI is in discussions with investors for new financing at a $100 billion valuation, as reported by Bloomberg News last week. Microsoft, OpenAI’s largest supporter, has implemented the startup’s AI tools in several products. The US media giant’s lawsuit claims that Microsoft duplicated its articles verbatim for its Bing search engine and used OpenAI’s technology to increase its value by a trillion dollars.
Microsoft’s shares saw a 55% increase since the debut of ChatGPT in November 2022, pushing its market capitalization to a hefty $2.8 trillion. However, in light of the lawsuit, shares were left largely unaffected, at least on Wednesday’s close.
The case is headed to the Southern District Court of New York under the title The New York Times Co. v. Microsoft Corp., OpenAI Inc., S.D.N.Y, No. 1:23-cv-11195, 12/27/23. As legal proceedings are still in infancy, there is potential for lengthy court battles ahead, keeping legal and media professionals alike watching closely.