News Orgs Ask Judge to Rule OpenAI, Microsoft Broke Copyright Law Over AI Products
Five news organizations have asked a federal judge to rule that OpenAI and Microsoft broke copyright law in their development and use of AI products, including Copilot.
The plaintiffs, which include The New York Times, the Daily News group, Ziff Davis, Mother Jones, and The Intercept, argue that the companies infringed on their copyrights at five points: acquiring articles, training models on them, using Microsoft's Bing index to ground live answers, reproducing text in Copilot outputs, and 'horse trading' between OpenAI and Microsoft.
The motion is based on internal documents obtained during discovery, including quotes from Microsoft executives that the plaintiffs argue support their case. For example, Brent Hecht, Microsoft's director of applied science, wrote that large models 'hoovering up' all a person's work would be an 'astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions.'
The click-through numbers are also key to the harm argument, with Microsoft's own data showing that Copilot answer engine click-through rates for The Times's sites fell 87-93%, while Ziff Davis sites saw a decline of 51-94%.