OpenAI is facing a lawsuit from The Intercept for allegedly removing copyright management information from its articles to train its AI models.

On February 20, 2025, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff ruled that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) claim regarding the removal of copyright information could proceed, citing traditional property-based harms.

Judge Rakoff acknowledged that The Intercept presented a plausible case of harm due to the alleged removal of copyright management information.

This lawsuit is distinct from others as it focuses specifically on the removal of copyright management information rather than direct copyright infringement.

Filed in February 2024, the lawsuit claims violations of the DMCA and unauthorized use of content for training OpenAI's ChatGPT.

This case is part of a broader trend where authors and copyright owners are increasingly suing tech companies over the data used to train generative AI systems.

Several publications, including The New York Times, are also suing AI companies for unauthorized content use, highlighting industry concerns regarding content survival and traffic generation.

Rakoff's ruling contrasts with a previous case where another judge dismissed a similar lawsuit from different news organizations.

An OpenAI spokesperson stated that the company's AI models are trained on publicly available data and adhere to fair use principles.

The judge noted that OpenAI should have been aware that removing copyright information could be considered infringement.

However, Judge Rakoff dismissed claims that OpenAI's actions led to users producing copyrighted works without attribution, citing insufficient evidence of direct distribution by the company.

This case underscores the ongoing tensions between journalism and AI companies, as news outlets struggle to navigate their relationships with tech giants.