Story
New York Times Accuses OpenAI of Deception, Seeks Sanctions in Copyright Case
Summary
A group of newspapers led by The New York Times has asked a federal court to sanction OpenAI, alleging the AI firm lied about its ability to search for copyrighted material and destroyed evidence in their high-stakes copyright infringement lawsuit.
A coalition of newspapers, including The New York Times Co. (NYT) and the New York Daily News, has asked a Manhattan federal court to impose sanctions on OpenAI. The motion, filed Thursday, accuses the artificial intelligence firm of lying to the court and destroying evidence in the ongoing, high-stakes copyright dispute over the use of articles to train its AI models.
Allegations of Misconduct
The newspapers' court filing alleges that OpenAI falsely claimed it was unable to search its large language models for their copyrighted content. The motion asserts this was a deliberate misrepresentation, stating the company had already conducted such searches "even before the first News Plaintiff filed suit."
According to the filing, this information came to light after an OpenAI employee testified that the company had "performed multiple searches for News Plaintiffs’ content." The newspapers also accuse OpenAI of deleting billions of relevant ChatGPT conversations or rendering them unsearchable. They are requesting sanctions that include attorneys' fees and a formal court finding that OpenAI's chat logs demonstrate misuse of their copyrighted works.
"For over two years, OpenAI lied to The Times, The Daily News Plaintiffs, the public, and the court," Ian Crosby, lead attorney for The New York Times, said in a statement. He added that OpenAI concealed its search capabilities while claiming such actions were "infeasible, burdensome, and invasive of users’ privacy."
AdContext of the Copyright Lawsuit
This motion is a significant development in the broader lawsuit initiated by The New York Times in 2023. The core of that case is the accusation that OpenAI and its largest financial backer, Microsoft (MSFT), used millions of news articles without permission or compensation to train the AI models that power services like ChatGPT.
This legal battle is one of the most prominent in a series of lawsuits brought by copyright holders—including authors, artists, and music publishers—against AI developers. The outcomes of these cases could set critical precedents for the AI industry, potentially reshaping the legal landscape regarding data sourcing and the costs associated with training advanced AI systems.
As of the filing, OpenAI had not publicly responded to a request for comment on the motion.