Eight newspapers sued OpenAI and Microsoft on Tuesday, alleging that the creator of ChatGPT copied its work without permission or payment.
Michael Dwyer/AP
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Michael Dwyer/AP
Eight newspapers sued OpenAI and Microsoft on Tuesday, alleging that the creator of ChatGPT copied its work without permission or payment.
Michael Dwyer/AP
Eight daily newspapers including THE New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune sued OpenAI and Microsoft on Tuesday in an attempt to stop tech companies from using copyrighted articles to train artificial intelligence chatbots.
Copyright infringement suit claims ChatGPT creator copied articles from newspapers “with impunity,” without ever seeking permission or payment for use of millions of articles used by the popular chatbot to answer the questions.
ChatGPT, which relies on vast amounts of data scraped from the Internet, has become a direct competitor to newspapers at a time when the news industry is being hit by declining advertising revenues and subscriptions, the lawsuit claims.
Additionally, according to the lawsuit, ChatGPT sometimes falsely attributes reporting to newspapers in the responses it generates, thereby tarnishing the media’s reputation.
For example, the suit cites an example in which ChatGPT states that the Chicago Tribune recommended a baby lounger that the newspaper never approved. In fact, the product mentioned by the chatbot had been linked to infant deaths and recalled.
In another example cited by the suit, ChatGPT was asked if smoking cured asthma, and the chatbot fabricated that. THE Denver Post published research indicating that smoking may be a cure for asthma. This claim is obviously false and the journal has never published such research.
“This issue is not just a business problem for a handful of newspapers or for the newspaper industry as a whole,” the newspapers’ attorneys wrote in the complaint. “This is a crucial issue for civilian life in America.”
In a statement, OpenAI said it takes “great care” to support news organizations in creating its products.
“Together with our news partners, we see immense potential for AI tools like ChatGPT to deepen publishers’ relationships with readers and improve the news experience,” said an OpenAI spokesperson. .
Microsoft, OpenAI’s largest backer, did not respond to a request for comment.
Lawyers for the newspapers, all of which are owned by New York hedge fund Alden Global Capital, are seeking unspecified damages and calling for an end to the practice of using its copyrighted works.
The suit further calls for the destruction of all AI models used by OpenAI that incorporate work published in journals – something AI experts say would be nearly impossible to achieve without completely rebuilding its models, an incredibly arduous undertaking and expensive.
“This lawsuit is about Microsoft and OpenAI not having the right to use copyrighted journal content to build their new billion-dollar businesses, without paying for that content,” according to the pursuit.
This is the latest legal headache for OpenAI, which faced a similar copyright infringement lawsuit from The New York Times Last year.
Together, the legal challenges are expected to amount to a high-stakes legal battle pitting one of the world’s leading AI companies against news publishers, in an area of law that experts say is unresolved and murky.
OpenAI has long claimed that its so-called “big language models” scrape vast amounts of data from all corners of the Internet, under what is known as the “fair use” doctrine.
Under this legal theory, copyrighted works can be used without permission if certain criteria are met, such as if they are substantially modified or if the new work does not compete with the original.
The “fair use” doctrine allows researchers, teachers, critics, and others to rely on copyrighted works without permission or payment.
Still, legal experts say it is far from certain that the law is on the side of AI companies, and that it will likely take years of court battles and a lengthy appeals process to determine whether tech companies leading companies like OpenAI have violated the law or not.
Other publishers have chosen to take a more conciliatory route with the company. The Associated Press, German publisher Axel Springer, owner Policy And Business Insiderand, recently, the Financial Timeshave all entered into licensing agreements with OpenAI in order to get paid for using copyrighted material.
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