New York Times Sues Microsoft And OpenAI
The New York Times has sued Microsoft and OpenAI, developers of the generative AI tools Copilot and ChatGPT, for allegedly utilizing the newspaper’s content to train these tools without authorization or compensation. The companies have reportedly persisted in “copying the information” and defended their actions by claiming it is “fair use” even after the new publisher questioned them.
Microsoft and OpenAI were hit with a copyright infringement complaint by The New York Times on Wednesday. The paper claims that the tech companies used its content to train their generative AI and large language model (LLM) systems. A federal court in Manhattan has received the lawsuit. “Copying and using millions of The Times’ copyrighted news articles, in-depth investigations, opinion pieces, reviews, how-to guides, and more.” So goes the New York Times’ assertion that OpenAI and Microsoft’s generative AI tools are based on. Despite drawing from various sources, the companies’ LLM systems were trained using data from The Times.
Copilot and ChatGPT, according to the Times, can “generate output that recites Times content verbatim, closely summarizes it, and mimics its expressive style.” So says the paper.
Using Times-trained LLMs across all of Microsoft’s products has contributed to a one trillion dollar increase in the company’s market valuation in the last year. The lawsuit says that OpenAI’s valuation has reached $90 billion thanks to the introduction of ChatGPT. As a result of this copyright violation, the New York Times may get damages in the billions. They owe billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages for the unlawful copying and use of The Times’s treasured writings, and this case aims to hold them responsible.
The news publisher stated that it “attempted to reach a negotiated agreement” with Microsoft and OpenAI after discovering their gen AI tools were being trained using its content. The negotiations aimed to ensure that the publisher received fair value for its content, help maintain a healthy news ecosystem, and develop GenAI technology responsibly. However, according to The Times, Microsoft and OpenAI insisted that the content usage was “fair use“, and the talks broke down.
According to the lawsuit, the news publishers have “suffered actual damages from the deprivation of the benefits of its work, such as, without limitation, lost advertising and affiliate referral revenue,” claiming that the news publishers have been violated in a “systematic and competitive intrusion.”
Many people have been interested in ChatGPT, the generative AI tool, since its launch in November 2022. Even though it had a million users at inception, it wasn’t until 2023 that the user base started to take off. With an anticipated 173 million users in April 2023, ChatGPT experienced a 9900 per cent growth rate in January 2023. The platform has achieved an impressive milestone of over 1.7 billion visits by October 2023. India is another country where the venue is quite well-liked. 8.18% of ChatGPT’s users are in India, making the country the second most popular user base. With a 14.81 per cent share, the United States has the most significant number of ChatGPT users.
