A.I. and copyrights: The New York Times sues OpenAI and Microsoft

According to the lawsuit, filed on December 27, 2023 in Manhattan Federal District Court, millions of articles from The Times have been used without permission by OpenAI and Microsoft to train their generative artificial intelligence (A.I.) models, such as ChatGPT and Copilot.

The New York Times claims that the use of its content constitutes a "violation of copyright in terms of content and journalistic work".

The paper estimates the damages to be "in the billions of dollars," and is demanding that the companies destroy any chatbot models and training data that use copyrighted material from The Times.

The paper joins a growing list of authors who have filed similar lawsuits against OpenAI.

The outcome of this case could set an important precedent in the field.

The emergence of "generative" AI highlights the urgent need to establish a specific legal and regulatory framework for the protection of copyrighted works, including fair compensation schemes for authors and their beneficiaries.

This debate is reminiscent of the one in the music industry a few years ago.