On January 14, 2025, a federal judge heard arguments in New York regarding The New York Times' lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft over copyright issues related to AI.

The New York Times, along with other publishers, alleges that OpenAI and Microsoft used their copyrighted content to train generative AI models, undermining their business models.

The core argument from the publishers is that ChatGPT's training data includes millions of copyrighted articles used without permission, constituting massive copyright infringement.

The Times is seeking billions in damages and the destruction of OpenAI's dataset, which could severely impact the company's operations if the court rules in favor of the publishers.

The lawsuit claims that the use of time-sensitive content from The Times' Wirecutter without attribution resulted in lost revenue and reputational damage.

OpenAI and Microsoft claim their use of copyrighted material is protected under the fair use doctrine, which allows for certain uses of copyrighted works without permission.

Defense attorneys argue that large language models do not store copyrighted content but instead rely on derived data from their training.

The outcome of the case will impact the legality of using publishers' copyrighted works for training generative AI models without consent.

Experts warn that copyright law will remain a critical issue for AI companies until a resolution is reached.

The case highlights ongoing concerns regarding copyright infringement in the context of AI technologies and their usage of protected content.

This lawsuit is just one of many faced by OpenAI, which is also involved in lawsuits from Canadian news publishers and other groups.

In contrast, other publishers like the Associated Press and News Corp have negotiated content-sharing deals with OpenAI, highlighting differing approaches to the issue.