A New York federal judge dismissed a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI over its use of news articles for training ChatGPT, but plaintiffs hint at a potential revised filing.
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OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT, avoided a copyright lawsuit claiming it misused news articles in training its large language model (LLM).
On Nov. 7 a federal judge in New York dismissed the lawsuit brought by news outlets Raw Story and AlterNet, according to a Reuters report.
OpenAI in the clear — for now
US District Judge Colleen McMahon ruled that the outlets did not present enough evidence of harm to support their claims but allowed for the possibility of refiling with additional evidence.
McMahon noted that what is “really at stake” is not the exclusion of “the alleged injury for which Plaintiffs truly seek redress is not the exclusion of copyrighted materials but the “use of Plaintiffs’ articles to develop ChatGPT without compensation.”
As the case stands, McMahon said the type of harm claimed did not justify the lawsuit.
However, OpenAI may not be entirely off the hook. Lawyers for the news outlets said they were “certain” they could address the court’s concerns with an amended complaint.
In February, the news outlets filed a lawsuit claiming thousands of articles were unlawfully used by OpenAI to train its chatbot, which reproduces copyrighted material when correctly prompted.
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In December 2023, The New York Times filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, with allegations of unauthorized use of “millions” of NYT articles for chatbot training. Time and The Associated Press have also challenged the AI developer’s use of copyrighted content via lawsuits.
AI and the news
However, since then the company has made major strides in partnering with news organizations to legally acquire rights to content in order to provide accurate, real-time news information as answers to queries.
It has partnered with major news providers globally, including the Financial Times, French publisher Le Monde, Spanish Prisa Media and German media giant Axel Springer.
As a result, on Nov. 1, the company announced its latest feature, ChatGPT Search, which allows users to search and receive answers from the web-based on their questions.
OpenAI isn’t the only AI company seeking out partnerships with news organizations. On Oct. 25 Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced its first news deal with Reuters.
The partnership will allow the company’s AI chatbot to also link directly to Reuters news articles when responding to related queries.
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