New York Times sues OpenAI, Microsoft over alleged copyright infringement

The suit does not specify the exact amount of money being sought, though it suggested that the companies should be on the hook for "billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages."

In their lawsuit, the New York-based outlet suggests that Microsoft and OpenAI "seek to free-ride on The Times's massive investment in its journalism," effectively "steal[ing] audiences away from it."

The Times cited numerous examples of content it had generated being regurgitated by chatbots such as ChatGPT or AI-powered Bing search functions either verbatim without attribution, or improperly attributed results with false information.

"If The Times and other news organizations cannot produce and protect their independent journalism, there will be a vacuum that no computer or artificial intelligence can fill," the outlet warned in its suit, adding, "Less journalism will be produced, and the cost to society will be enormous."

While Microsoft declined to comment, OpenAI spokeswoman Lindsey Held said the company, led by Sam Altman, was "surprised and disappointed" by the lawsuit, given that talks with the Times regarding the issue of copyright infringement had been "moving forward constructively."

“We respect the rights of content creators and owners and are committed to working with them to ensure they benefit from A.I. technology and new revenue models," Held said. "We're hopeful that we will find a mutually beneficial way to work together, as we are doing with many other publishers."

The emergence of AI-powered chatbots trained on millions of articles written by humans working for uncompensated companies has caused the need for an update to the legal definition of copyright infringement, a decision ProPublica's former president Richard Tofel said will "inevitably" have to be made by the Supreme Court.