An article summarized by Variety:
Several major news organizations, including The New York Times, the Daily News, the Center for Investigative Reporting, The Intercept, and Ziff Davis, have asked a federal judge to sanction OpenAI, alleging the company misled the court about its ability to search AI training data and ChatGPT output logs. The outlets claim OpenAI falsely stated for more than two years that such searches were impossible, only for company testimony to later reveal that it had, in fact, searched that data. They also allege OpenAI improperly deleted logs despite court orders requiring the preservation of evidence.
In their court filing, the publishers accused OpenAI of obstructing the discovery process and requested that the court formally recognize the company's alleged misconduct, award attorneys' fees, and impose additional penalties. Attorneys representing the news organizations argued that OpenAI concealed evidence that could have been produced much earlier, claiming the company's actions undermined both the legal process and its defense that using copyrighted journalism to train AI models qualifies as fair use.
The dispute is part of a broader legal battle between news publishers and AI companies over the use of copyrighted content. The New York Times first sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023, with other publishers filing similar lawsuits in 2024. As AI-generated summaries increasingly compete with traditional news websites for readers and advertising revenue, many publishers are balancing litigation to protect their journalism with licensing agreements and efforts to integrate AI into their own newsrooms.
