AI training built on fair use looks shaky when the companies' own people call it "astonishing theft"
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The New York Times and several other media companies have filed a joint summary-judgment brief seeking billions of dollars in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft over alleged copyright infringement in AI training. The brief cites internal messages and sworn testimony in which executives questioned the companies’ fair use defense, described chatbots as substitutes for journalism, and acknowledged declining traffic to publishers’ websites. It also alleges that OpenAI bypassed paywalls, ignored website license terms, used a restricted corpus for training, and later introduced a filter that could suppress evidence of copied material. The plaintiffs argue that AI training is commercial and substitutive rather than transformative, involves copying entire expressive works, and harms existing or potential licensing markets. They further contend that AI tools can produce large volumes of low-quality pseudo-news at minimal cost, increasing competition with publishers. OpenAI and Microsoft are expected to defend their position by emphasizing fair use and the transformative nature of their systems, but the disclosed documents make that argument more difficult. Previous court rulings and the US Department of Justice have generally favored the AI companies’ fair use position, while the case remains unresolved.
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