Newspapers ask judge to sanction OpenAI in copyright fight
The New York Times, Daily News and other publishers accuse OpenAI of withholding evidence in a federal copyright case over AI training.
By Sofia Marchetti · World Affairs Correspondent
3 min read
A group of US news publishers led by The New York Times has asked a federal judge in Manhattan to sanction OpenAI, raising the stakes in a copyright case over how artificial intelligence systems are trained. The dispute matters because it could influence whether AI companies may use news archives to build chatbots that compete with publishers for readers.
In a filing submitted Thursday, the publishers accused OpenAI of withholding or destroying evidence tied to training data and ChatGPT logs, according to the Associated Press and Reuters. They said those materials could show how OpenAI’s systems used copyrighted news articles.
The plaintiffs include The New York Times, the Daily News and other US media outlets. They allege OpenAI and Microsoft relied on millions of news stories to develop AI tools without permission from the publishers that produced them.
Publishers allege discovery misconduct
The newspapers asked the court to penalize OpenAI for what they described as misconduct during discovery, the evidence-gathering phase of litigation. According to the filing, the publishers said a recent deposition from an OpenAI employee contradicted earlier statements by the company about its ability to search for copyrighted material in training datasets and ChatGPT logs.
Steven Lieberman, a lawyer for the New York Daily News, said OpenAI had spent two years making false statements about whether it could search those materials. Lieberman, who represents the Daily News and seven related newspapers, said the motion asks the court to punish OpenAI for hiding and destroying evidence about the use of journalism in ChatGPT training.
OpenAI has argued in the case that producing ChatGPT conversation logs could violate user privacy. The company rejected the publishers’ latest allegations in a statement reported by Reuters.
“As the Times’ case weakens and they’ve been forced to drop claims against us, they’re persisting with their efforts to invade the privacy of people who have nothing to do with this case, including by making these blatantly false allegations,” OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri said, according to Reuters.
Broader fight over AI and news
The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in late 2023, roughly a year after ChatGPT’s launch helped trigger a surge in commercial AI development. Other news companies later joined the litigation.
The publishers argue that AI chatbots can draw users away from news websites by answering questions directly, reducing the traffic that supports digital advertising. The pressure on publishers increased after Google began showing AI-generated summaries at the top of search results in 2024, according to the AP and Reuters.
The case is part of a wider set of lawsuits by copyright owners against AI companies. Authors, visual artists and music labels have brought claims against firms including OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta Platforms, alleging their work was used improperly to train AI systems.
The Times has spent more than $28m on litigation against AI companies, according to financial regulatory filings cited by the AP and Reuters. Those costs include a separate lawsuit the newspaper filed last year against Perplexity.
At the same time, some media organizations have chosen to license their material to AI companies. The Associated Press announced a licensing agreement with OpenAI in 2023, and other outlets have reached deals with companies including Google and Meta, according to the AP and Reuters.
This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.