The New York Times has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft for infringing its copyright. The renowned American newspaper accuses both companies of using millions of their articles to train ChatGPT, without having authorization to do so.
According to publication the aforementioned newspaperthis is the first lawsuit for copyright that a mass media presents against those of Sam Altman. Those from Redmond also appear in the complaint for having invested more than $10 billion in OpenAI, which has allowed them to integrate ChatGPT technology into Copilot.
Which The New York Times The argument is that the two corporations have illegally mined their articles to train their chatbots. Likewise, he claims that OpenAI and Microsoft are turning ChatGPT into a competitor to traditional media, stealing their audience.
The judicial presentation includes examples in which some queries made to ChatGPT provide fragments extracted from the publications of the ChatGPT in response. NYT. The newspaper maintains that much of this material is only available to users who pay a subscription, but that neither company has shelled out money to gain access.
“In addition to seeking to protect intellectual property, the demand for The Times sees ChatGPT and other AI systems as potential competitors in the news business. When chatbots are asked about current events or other newsworthy topics, they can generate answers that build on previous journalism from The Times. The newspaper expresses concern that readers will be satisfied with a response from a chatbot and refuse to visit the newspaper’s website. Timesthus reducing web traffic that can translate into advertising and subscription revenue.”
The New York Times, on the lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft
Another notable fact about this soap opera is that The New York Times tried to negotiate with OpenAI and Microsoft before going to court. The news outlet maintains that it approached both firms in April to express its concerns about the matter and seek some type of understanding. The firm would have proposed that it be paid financial compensation for access to its material and that safeguards be established for the use of its content. However, the efforts would have come to nothing.
OpenAI, Microsoft and ChatGPT, in the spotlight The New York Times
This is not the first time that using copyrighted material to train ChatGPT has caused short circuits. Over the course of this year, OpenAI has been the subject of multiple lawsuits. Authors and writers have accused the company of using its material without authorization to train AI models such as GPT-3 and GPT-4.
Added to this is an accusation for the massive and illegal collection of personal data through the technique of web scraping. According to one of the complaints, Sam Altman’s firm collected more than 300,000 million words published on the web. And he did it secretly and without registering as broker of data.
In addition to the unauthorized use of millions of newspaper articles, The New York Times claims that ChatGPT sometimes provides answers with misinformation and attributes it to the newspaper. The company maintains that this damages your credibility and exposes users to an ever-increasing flow of misinformation.
The lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft does not mention a specific financial figure that the NYT are seeking compensation. However, the court presentation indicates that the newspaper aspires to hold both companies responsible for the “billions of dollars in legal and actual damages they owe for the illegal copying and use of the exceptionally valuable works of the Times“.
In addition, The New York Times wants corporations to be prevented from continuing with this practice, and demands that all data sets are destroyed used to train ChatGPT that include your intellectual property. We will have to see how this story continues, but it has all the earmarks of being a soap opera that will last several weeks.
Will other media outlets join the claim? Recall that OpenAI has already signed agreements with Axel Springer and AP to train their AI models using articles published by their magazines and news platforms. A measure that Apple is also adopting for the development of its own artificial intelligence.