The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft in a complaint filed Wednesday, alleging that the companies used copyrighted material to power their AI products.
OpenAI's AI models use data from a multitude of sources to run programs such as ChatGPT, Dall-E and Microsoft's Bing Chat, but the company is opaque about exactly what materials are used to train the models.
In the suit filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York, the Times claims that OpenAI used millions of pieces of Times content without permission to train the models and use the information from its articles to answer users questions on services like ChatGPT.
According to the Times, the lawsuit was filed after negotiations for a commercial contract broke down. Media groups like the Associated Press and Axel Springer have already signed deals with OpenAI to license their content.
The Times is seeking "billions in statutory and actual damages" and demands the company stop using its copyrighted material and destroy any data sets that include its content.
