In what could be one of the most important lawsuits of our time, The New York Times (NYT) sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement. The IT industry was shaken recently by the brief ousting and swift reinstatement of OpenAI’s outspoken chief executive officer, Sam Altman, but the fierce conflict between the providers of information used to train Artificial Intelligence systems and the operators went unaddressed. Next came The NYT’s lawsuit, alleging that its content was used to train large language models (LLMs) and generative AI (GenAI) systems. If successful, this action might see The NYT receive billions of dollars in damages.
The NYT’s concerns, the counter
The NYT claimed that these companies use information from multiple sources to develop AI products. However, they give The NYT content special emphasis and “seek to free-ride on the Times’s massive investment in journalism” without permission or payment. This reduces readers’ perceived need to visit the Times website, potentially reducing advertising and subscription revenue.
