Recently, the U.S. Court for the Southern District of New York made a ruling on the copyright infringement lawsuit filed by Raw Story Media and AlterNet Media against OpenAI, rejecting the plaintiff’s claim. The editor of Downcodes will conduct an in-depth interpretation of this case and analyze its far-reaching impact on the field of artificial intelligence, especially generative AI and copyright issues. This case involves key issues such as the source of training data and copyright ownership of large-scale language models, and has important reference value.
Raw Story and AlterNet are two mainly left-wing online news media. They claim that OpenAI used their website articles to train ChatGPT and other models without authorization, and removed copyright management during the use process. Information (CMI). The unauthorized removal or alteration of CMI is considered copyright infringement under Section 1202(b) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The plaintiffs argue that OpenAI’s failure to preserve this information in the generated content resulted in infringement of their work.
Judge Colleen McMahon, however, held that the plaintiffs failed to prove that Open's conduct caused them specific actual harm, a requirement required to litigate under Article III of the U.S. Constitution. The judge noted that as large language model interfaces continue to evolve and the attribution and traceability of content become more complex, it is unlikely that generative AI will be able to replicate the original article verbatim. Therefore, the plaintiff’s claim appears even more far-fetched.
In addition, the judge mentioned that generative AI generates content through comprehensive information, rather than simple repetition. The plaintiffs failed to provide sufficient evidence that their specific works were directly infringed, causing identifiable harm.
The decision sparked widespread concern in the AI field because it revealed the difficulties the law faces when dealing with generated AI. Courts have inconsistent application standards for DMCA Section 1202(b). Some courts require proof that the infringing content is completely consistent with the original work, while other courts allow a more flexible interpretation.
The loss of Raw Story is not only a victory for OpenAI, but may also provide a certain basis for the handling of other similar cases. With the rapid development of AI technology, how content creators can ensure that their works are protected and receive reasonable compensation has become an urgent issue to be solved.
The judgment in this case has important guiding significance for the future development of artificial intelligence and copyright protection, and also provides a reference for the improvement of relevant laws and regulations. How to balance the development of artificial intelligence technology and the protection of intellectual property rights will be an important issue that requires continued attention and discussion in the future. The editor of Downcodes will continue to pay attention to the progress of such cases and bring more relevant reports to readers.