New York Times Accuses OpenAI of Massive Intellectual Property Theft

The filing cites an internal assessment by Microsoft’s Director of Applied Science, Brent Hect, who reportedly described the practice as the largest theft of human labor in history. Hect further alleged that OpenAI attempted an accidental cover-up while struggling to identify and isolate New York Times content within its massive datasets. Microsoft distanced itself from these claims, characterizing them as the isolated perspective of a single employee rather than official corporate policy.

This litigation, filed three years ago in a New York federal court, includes a coalition of publishers such as Ziff Davis, The Intercept, and Mother Jones. The plaintiffs argue that ChatGPT’s training process relied on stolen copyrighted material, a claim OpenAI and Microsoft defend as transformative fair use. Adding to the tension, internal admissions from OpenAI engineers revealed in the documents suggest that even when the company provides source citations, users rarely engage with the links, undermining claims that AI tools drive traffic back to news sites.

While the US Department of Justice has signaled support for the tech giants, citing national security and economic growth, the plaintiffs are pushing for an immediate summary judgment. US District Judge Sidney Stein oversees the case, though a final resolution remains unlikely before 2027.