The New York Times and other media companies filed a court brief seeking billions in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement in AI training, citing internal emails and testimony from company executives who called the practice "astonishing theft" and acknowledged that AI products substitute for original journalism, undermining their fair use defense.
Unsealed court documents from The New York Times' copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft reveal internal admissions that AI training practices constitute theft and pose existential threats to publishers. Microsoft executives acknowledged that their Copilot product caused New York Times traffic to drop 93%, and internal communications show concern about harming content creators whose work trained the models. The case raises questions about whether AI companies' unlicensed use of copyrighted material qualifies as fair use.
Unsealed court documents from The New York Times' lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft reveal internal admissions that AI training practices constituted theft and posed existential threats to publishers. Microsoft executives acknowledged bypassing paywalls, mass scraping content, and stripping copyright notices, while data showed their Copilot product reduced Times traffic by up to 93%, directly harming the original content creators' business.
Unsealed court documents in the New York Times v. OpenAI lawsuit reveal internal admissions from Microsoft and OpenAI executives that large language models were built on stolen content and have created a 'doom loop' destroying the web and human labor markets. The filing describes LLM training as 'an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions' and 'the largest theft of labor in human history,' with AI products cannibalizing the businesses they extracted content from.
Unsealed filings in The New York Times' copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft reveal a Microsoft executive called AI scraping "the largest theft of labor in human history." Internal documents show the companies obtained training data by bypassing paywalls and stripping copyright notices, with Microsoft's Copilot causing a 93% drop in Times click-through rates, undermining fair use defenses.
Mainstream news outlets are prominently covering AI safety risks, marking a shift similar to early COVID-19 coverage when niche concerns suddenly became center-stage reporting. The author notes relief that major institutions are addressing AI dangers seriously, though fundamental safety challenges remain unsolved.