The New York Times, a leading American newspaper, has filed a civil action against Microsoft Corporation and the AI developer OpenAI, alleging copyright infringement. The complaint asserts that OpenAI and Microsoft trained their artificial intelligence systems on millions of The New York Times articles and reports without permission, using the paper’s content to teach and calibrate their models.
Central to the case is the claim that outputs from both Microsoft’s Copilot and OpenAI’s ChatGPT reproduce NYT material verbatim and echo its phrasing and ideas. The plaintiff maintains that this behavior damages The New York Times’ relationship with its readers and erodes revenue streams from subscriptions, advertising, and affiliate programs by creating a substitute for genuine access to the original content.
The lawsuit argues that AI models trained on broadcast content threaten the integrity of journalism by enabling automation to echo established reporting without proper licensing or compensation. Accordingly, The New York Times seeks a judicial order prohibiting OpenAI and Microsoft from training models on NYT content and from incorporating The New York Times material into their training datasets going forward, in addition to removing existing NYT data from any such repositories.
Earlier this year, the Times took a further step by blocking OpenAI’s web browser from accessing its site in an effort to curb data extraction for AI training. This move underscored the newspaper’s concern that automated scraping and re-use of its content could undermine traditional reporting economics and editorial control.
With a circulation figure that places it among the top newspapers in the United States, The New York Times sits behind only a few peers in terms of reach. Its website attracts tens of millions of visitors each month, highlighting the scale of its audience and the potential impact of licensing and data-use decisions on both readers and advertisers. The legal action reflects a broader tension in the media landscape as AI developers explore large-scale training using publicly accessible content and publishers seek fair compensation and clearer licensing terms.
Industry observers note that this dispute intersects with other high-profile debates about AI and intellectual property rights. For example, discussions have circulated about how major tech companies might train models on news content while honoring existing licensing structures and contemplating new models for compensation and attribution. The Times’ suit adds momentum to those conversations, potentially influencing how publishers protect their works and how technology firms approach training data in the future.
In related developments, there is ongoing attention to how AI systems should be designed to respect journalist-created material while still enabling advancements in artificial intelligence. The balance between innovation and fair use remains a live issue, with stakeholders calling for transparent processes to determine what data can be used, under what terms, and with what safeguards for original content and reporting.”