Media organizations claim that OpenAI is concealing crucial evidence that could significantly influence an upcoming copyright infringement trial.
Published On 9 Jul 20269 Jul 2026
The New York Times, Daily News, and several other U.S. media entities have petitioned a federal court to impose sanctions on OpenAI. This action escalates an ongoing conflict over artificial intelligence (AI) and copyright, a dispute that could redefine the future of a beleaguered news sector.
The publications assert that the developer of ChatGPT is withholding critical evidence in a potentially historic copyright infringement case.
The contention revolves around the utilization of millions of news articles by OpenAI and its collaborator, Microsoft, to construct their AI frameworks.
Central to the debate is whether AI-driven chatbots are engaging in unfair practices, drawing away web traffic without fulfilling the journalistic duties intrinsic to news gathering.
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A filing lodged on Thursday at a federal courthouse in Manhattan alleges that OpenAI has opted for “obstruction” rather than releasing data sets and ChatGPT logs that could elucidate how copyrighted news content was employed in training the AI system.
The plaintiffs request that the judge impose penalties for “discovery misconduct,” asserting that a recent deposition from an OpenAI employee contradicts prior assertions made by the company.
Steven Lieberman, an attorney representing the New York Daily News, indicated that OpenAI has been “deliberately misrepresenting” its capacity to identify copyrighted material within its AI training datasets and logs for two years.
“This motion implores the court to penalize OpenAI for obscuring and destroying evidence that illustrates how ChatGPT was trained on appropriated journalism,” remarked Lieberman, representing the Daily News and seven affiliated publications.
OpenAI has previously contended that disclosing ChatGPT conversation logs poses risks to user privacy.
“As the Times’ litigation weakens and they have been compelled to retract claims against us, they persist in their attempts to invade the privacy of unrelated individuals, propagating these starkly false allegations,” responded Drew Pusateri, a spokesperson for OpenAI, according to Reuters.
Misuse of Material
The New York Times initiated legal proceedings against OpenAI and Microsoft in late 2023, roughly one year after the launch of ChatGPT ignited a commercial AI surge, fundamentally altering online information retrieval methods.
The threat to traditional news organizations became increasingly evident when Google introduced AI-generated summaries at the forefront of search results in 2024, diverting essential advertising revenue that typically derives from clicks to original sources of information. Subsequently, The New York Times was joined in its lawsuit by other media companies.
This case is part of a broader series of actions taken by copyright holders, including writers, visual artists, and music labels, against tech corporations such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta Platforms, all accused of improperly appropriating their content for AI training.
According to filings with financial regulators, The New York Times has already expended over $28 million in its legal battle against AI firms. This amount encompasses another lawsuit initiated against the AI company Perplexity last year.
The escalating financial burden coincides with an increasing number of media organizations that have entered into licensing agreements with OpenAI and other AI entities like Google and Meta, which typically remunerate the outlets for access to their news feeds or archives for AI training purposes. Notably, the Associated Press was the first to formalize such an agreement with OpenAI in 2023.
Source link: Aljazeera.com.
