New York Times Copyright Lawsuit Against OpenAI (2023)

Incident Summary

On December 27, 2023, The New York Times Company filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.^[1] The complaint alleged that OpenAI used millions of New York Times articles to train its GPT large language models without authorization, and that the resulting AI systems could reproduce substantial portions of Times content, including near-verbatim excerpts of copyrighted articles.^[1][2]

The lawsuit was the first major copyright action brought by a leading news organization against an AI company over training data use. The complaint included exhibits demonstrating instances in which ChatGPT produced text that closely matched published Times articles, including reporting behind the newspaper’s paywall.^[1] The Times sought billions of dollars in damages and requested that OpenAI destroy any models or training data incorporating its copyrighted content.^[3]

The case became a bellwether for the broader legal question of whether the use of copyrighted material for AI training constitutes fair use under U.S. law. Multiple other media organizations subsequently filed similar lawsuits against AI companies, and the outcome is expected to have significant implications for the relationship between AI development and content creation.

Key Facts

• Plaintiff: The New York Times Company
• Defendants: OpenAI LP and Microsoft Corporation
• Court: U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Case No. 1:23-cv-11195
• Core allegation: Millions of NYT articles used to train GPT models without permission or compensation
• Evidence presented: Exhibits showing ChatGPT reproducing near-verbatim excerpts of copyrighted NYT articles
• Damages sought: Billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages
• Remedy sought: Destruction of models and training data incorporating NYT content
• Status: Ongoing as of early 2026

Threat Patterns Involved

Primary: Power and Data Concentration — The lawsuit illustrates how AI companies have concentrated enormous value by ingesting the creative output of content producers at scale, without consent or compensation, creating a power asymmetry between AI platform operators and the content creators whose work underpins the models.

Secondary: Behavioral Profiling Without Consent — The unauthorized use of published content for model training represents a form of data extraction without consent, where the creative expression and editorial investment of journalists is converted into AI capabilities without the knowledge or agreement of the content creators.

Significance

1. Landmark legal test for AI training data rights. The case represents the most prominent legal challenge to the AI industry’s use of copyrighted content for training, and its outcome may define the legal framework governing AI-content relationships for years to come.^[1]
2. Demonstrated reproduction of copyrighted content. The complaint’s exhibits showing near-verbatim reproduction of Times articles challenged the AI industry’s position that training on copyrighted content produces only transformative outputs.^[1]
3. Economic threat to journalism. The case highlighted the risk that AI models trained on journalistic content could substitute for the original reporting, undermining the economic viability of investigative journalism and news production.^[2]
4. Industry-wide implications. The lawsuit catalyzed a wave of similar legal actions by other content creators and publishers, and prompted several AI companies to pursue licensing agreements with media organizations preemptively.