AI training built on fair use looks shaky when the companies' own people call it "astonishing theft"
NYT and media plaintiffs cite internal OpenAI and Microsoft emails and sworn testimony to challenge fair use in a consolidated copyright suit seeking billions.
The New York Times, the Daily News group, Ziff Davis, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and The Intercept filed a 92-page summary judgment brief in the consolidated multidistrict litigation in US District Court in New York, seeking billions in damages. The brief cites discovery materials including Microsoft's Brent Hecht calling AI training 'an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,' OpenAI ChatGPT head Nick Turley calling products 'largely substitutive,' and CEO Satya Nadella's testimony that paywalled content should be licensed. It also alleges OpenAI bypassed NYT paywalls, misused the licensed 1.8-million-article Annotated Corpus, and built a post-lawsuit filter plaintiffs characterize as evidence suppression.
- Plaintiffs include NYT, Daily News group, Ziff Davis, Mother Jones, and The Intercept
- Microsoft's Brent Hecht called AI training an 'astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions'
- Internal data shows Copilot cut publisher click-through rates by up to 94 percent
- OpenAI allegedly bypassed NYT paywalls and misused the licensed Annotated Corpus
- A post-filing output filter is framed as suppressing evidence of copying
- Countries
- United States
From the original article
5 min read at the-decoder.com
Internal emails and sworn testimony undercut OpenAI and Microsoft's fair use defense. A Microsoft director described the practice as the "largest theft of labor in human history," while OpenAI's head of ChatGPT wrote that the products "are largely substitutive, period." The article AI training built on fair use looks shaky when the companies' own people call it "astonishing theft" appeared first on The Decoder.
By Matthias Bastian · the-decoder.com
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