OpenAI Accuses New York Times of Deceiving ChatGPT

OpenAI claimed in a request submitted to the court that The New York Times falsely accused them of violating the terms of use by making ChatGPT reproduce its content.

For this reason and others, the company is calling on the Southern District Court of New York to dismiss many of the claims in the copyright infringement lawsuit brought by the newspaper against the company.

OpenAI confirms that The New York Times exploited a mistake that they are currently working to fix, and that the newspaper sent the articles directly to the chatbot to encourage it to re-generate the text passages.

The company states that ordinary people do not use OpenAI products in this way, citing an article published by The New York Times in April 2023 titled “35 Ways Real People Currently Use Artificial Intelligence.”

Ian Crosby, senior lawyer for The New York Times, stated that describing the newspaper’s efforts as a breach is inaccurate, and that The New York Times was using OpenAI products to search for evidence that OpenAI had stolen and republished The New York Times’ copyrighted work.

Crosby also stated that OpenAI does not deny that it copied works from The New York Times without permission under fair use law.

The New York Times filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft in December.

The newspaper claimed that the two companies trained artificial intelligence models on their content and that chatbots could reproduce stories literally. The newspaper claimed that this deprives it of revenue and harms its relationship with its readers.

OpenAI is seeking for the court to partially reject the newspaper’s charge related to direct copyright infringement. It also demands the court to dismiss other allegations claiming that OpenAI contributed to the infringement, failed to remove infringing information, and created unfair competition through misappropriation.

The lawsuit filed by the newspaper includes allegations related to trademark infringement and unfair competition under public law through embezzlement and violation of copyright rights.

Emerging artificial intelligence companies, such as OpenAI, Stability AI, and Anthrobotic, are currently facing increasingly broad legal actions, some of which come from organizations with decades of experience in copyright battles. These issues have the potential to disrupt or even overshadow the emerging industry.