Recently, the New York Times filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI for copyright infringement and intellectual property abuse, with the claim amount reaching billions of dollars. This move has caused widespread concern in the industry about the copyright issue of generative AI tools. The core of the case is that the New York Times believes that the AI models developed by Microsoft and OpenAI were trained on its news content and directly competed with its content, thereby harming the Times's business interests. The move also reflects concerns among publishers and content creators about the potential loss of traffic and revenue caused by generative AI technology.
The New York Times filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI, accusing them of copyright infringement and misuse of the newspaper’s intellectual property. The New York Times seeks billions in statutory and actual damages. Microsoft is an investor and supplier to OpenAI, which develops the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT. Publishers and content creators are concerned that the emergence of generative AI tools will lead to reduced traffic and revenue. OpenAI has entered into a partnership with Axel Springer to license its content. The New York Times believes that Microsoft and OpenAI’s AI models directly compete with its content and deprive The Times of business opportunities.The outcome of this case will have a profound impact on the development of the artificial intelligence industry and the protection of the rights and interests of content creators, and deserves continued attention. In the future, how to balance AI technology development and intellectual property protection will become an important issue.