NYT, OpenAI argue summary judgment in copyright suit

The New York Times, OpenAI, and Microsoft presented oral arguments Friday in a federal summary judgment hearing regarding alleged copyright infringement through AI model training. The Times contends that defendants unlawfully copied protected works at scale to create commercial substitutes, seeking a ruling without trial. OpenAI and Microsoft countered that training on publicly available data constitutes transformative fair use under recent California precedents like Kadrey v. Meta. Defendants further argued that ChatGPT outputs do not replace original journalism and that reported facts remain unprotected by copyright law. While the Times acknowledges prior fair use rulings for other entities, it maintains its specific case involves distinct commercial harm. A decision favoring the publisher could disrupt current generative AI business models reliant on unlicensed data ingestion. Conversely, a defense victory would significantly limit publishers' ability to control or monetize how AI systems utilize proprietary news content.