New York, NY – A series of high-profile lawsuits in a federal court in New York is set to determine the future of AI chatbots, particularly ChatGPT, and their use of copyrighted material. OpenAI, in collaboration with Microsoft, faces allegations of copyright infringement and unfair competition from professional writers and media outlets. However, legal experts believe that these lawsuits will be an uphill battle for the plaintiffs.
The lawsuits involve The New York Times, a group of renowned novelists including John Grisham and Jodi Picoult, and bestselling nonfiction writers. While each lawsuit presents different claims, they all revolve around OpenAI’s alleged use of copyrighted intellectual property. Attorney Justin Nelson, representing the nonfiction writers, argues that OpenAI believes it can freely use any intellectual property available on the internet.
The New York Times filed a lawsuit in December, asserting that ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot compete with the very outlets they were trained on, diverting web traffic and advertising revenue. The Times provided evidence of the chatbots reproducing its articles verbatim and spreading misinformation falsely attributed to the newspaper. These actions were seen as damaging to the newspaper’s reputation.
U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein is currently presiding over all three cases, along with a fourth lawsuit filed by two additional nonfiction authors last week. OpenAI and Microsoft have not yet filed formal counter-arguments, but OpenAI released a statement calling The Times lawsuit “without merit” and stating that the chatbot’s ability to reproduce articles is a “rare bug.” The company claims that training AI models using publicly available internet materials falls under fair use.
OpenAI refers to licensing agreements it has made with organizations like The Associated Press and Axel Springer. These agreements, according to OpenAI, demonstrate its efforts to support a healthy news ecosystem. However, The New York Times chose to sue rather than engage in similar talks. OpenAI downplayed the importance of news content in AI training, emphasizing that its models learn from a wide range of sources.
The central argument in favor of tech companies lies in the “fair use” doctrine of U.S. copyright law, which allows limited use of copyrighted material for teaching, research, or transformative purposes. The legal team representing The Times contends that OpenAI and Microsoft’s actions do not qualify as fair use. They claim that the companies are exploiting the newspaper’s journalism without permission or compensation.
Although previous court rulings have often favored tech companies in cases involving AI systems and copyright, the current lawsuits present more detailed evidence of alleged harm. Nonetheless, legal experts like Ashima Aggarwal believe that courts are unlikely to view using copyrighted content to train AI systems as copyright infringement.
The outcomes of these lawsuits will be crucial in shaping the future of AI chatbots and their usage of copyrighted material. Some media outlets and content creators are also calling for stronger copyright protections in the AI era. A panel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will further explore the impact of AI on journalism.
As the AI industry and copyright holders await the court’s decisions, it remains to be seen how the legal interpretation of fair use will evolve in the context of AI technology.