OpenAI, a leading artificial intelligence company, has filed a motion in federal court seeking to dismiss key elements of a lawsuit brought by The New York Times Company. The Times sued OpenAI and its partner Microsoft, alleging that they infringed on its copyrights by using millions of its articles to train A.I. technologies like the chatbot ChatGPT.
In response, OpenAI argued that ChatGPT is not a substitute for a subscription to The New York Times and that people do not use it to access Times articles. The defendants also disputed the claim that they copied The Times’s works without permission, stating that they used OpenAI’s products to investigate the alleged theft.
The motion filed by OpenAI asked the court to dismiss four claims from The Times’s complaint, including allegations of copyright violation and hacking. OpenAI’s lawyers argued that the reproduction of articles occurred more than three years ago and that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act claim was not legally valid.
This lawsuit is significant as it is the first time a major American media company has taken legal action against an A.I. company over copyright issues. OpenAI and other A.I. companies have faced similar lawsuits from various groups over the use of copyrighted material to train their systems.
The outcome of this case could have far-reaching implications for the use of copyrighted material in A.I. technologies. OpenAI maintains that they have the right to use such material to create innovative products and that no entity should have a monopoly on facts or language.
As the legal battle between OpenAI and The New York Times continues, the tech and media industries will be closely watching to see how the court rules on these complex copyright issues.
