The New York Times on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI, the company behind popular AI chatbot ChatGPT, accusing the pair of copyright infringement and abusing the newspaper’s intellectual property to train large language models. Microsoft both invests in and supplies OpenAI, providing it with access to the Redmond, Washington, giant’s Azure cloud computing technology. The publisher said in a filing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that it seeks to hold Microsoft and OpenAI to account for the “billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages” it believes it is owed for the “unlawful copying and use of The Times’s uniquely valuable works.” CNBC has reached out to Microsoft and OpenAI for comment. The Times said in an emailed statement that it “recognizes the power and potential of GenAI for the public and for journalism,” but added that journalistic material should be used for commercial gain with permission from the original source. “These tools were built with and continue to use independent journalism and content that is only available because we and our peers reported, edited, and fact-checked it at high cost and with considerable expertise,” the Times said. “Settled copyright law protects our journalism and content. If Microsoft and OpenAI want to use our work for commercial purposes, the law requires that they first obtain our permission. They have not done so.” The Times is represented in the proceedings by Susman Godfrey, the litigation firm that represented Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation suit against Fox News that culminated in a $787.5 million settlement.
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