New York Times sues ChatGPT, Microsoft for copying its content to train chatbots | Details inside

Famous American news outlet, The New York Times sued ChatGPT's parent company OpenAI, and Microsoft over a copyright infringement claim. In the suit filed on Wednesday, the news outlet took the tech giants to court, seeking to end the practice of using its stories to train chatbots. The NYT noted that they filed the lawsuit in the Southern District of New York in Manhattan. According to the papers filed in the court, the news organisation accused the company of “unlawfully” using The Time's work to create artificial intelligence products that eventually compete with the news outlet. 

Meanwhile, OpenAI and Microsoft are yet to respond to the lawsuit. However, it is important to note that The Times became the first major American media organisation to sue the company that created ChatGPT and other popular AI platforms over copyright issues. While the news giant made it clear that the lawsuit does not include an exact monetary demand, it mentions that the defendant should be held responsible for “billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages”. The outlet went on to urge the company to destroy any chatbot models and training data that use copyrighted material from The Times.

The outlet approached Times before moving court

In their latest complaint, The New York Times mentioned that it approached Microsoft and Open AI in April this year to raise concerns over the use of its intellectual property and even suggested exploring an “an amicable resolution". However, the outlet claimed that the talks held in April did not produce a solid resolution. Meanwhile, OpenAI spokeswoman, Lindsey Held, said in a statement that the company is “surprised and disappointed” by the lawsuit. “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 noted in the statement. “We’re hopeful that we will find a mutually beneficial way to work together, as we are doing with many other publishers," she furthered. Meanwhile, Microsoft declined to comment altogether.