OpenAI scores key legal victory as judge throws out copyright case brought by news websites
A New York federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by news sites Raw Story and AlterNet against OpenAI for using their articles to train AI systems. The ruling could affect similar ongoing cases.
Judge Colleen McMahon dismissed the case after finding that the plaintiffs failed to show concrete harm from OpenAI's use of their content as training data. Unlike other lawsuits targeting AI companies, this case focused on the removal of copyright management information rather than direct copyright violations—though Judge McMahon noted the underlying issue remained the same.
The judge's decision supported the fair use defense of OpenAI and other AI companies, noting that ChatGPT creates synthesized responses from its training rather than copying content directly. She emphasized that the likelihood of ChatGPT reproducing exact copies of articles is minimal, and pointed out that factual information in articles isn't copyrighted anyway.
The ruling also addressed past instances where ChatGPT had copied text verbatim, noting these cases can't be replicated with current versions—supporting OpenAI's position that such copying, when it occurs, is a rare bug rather than intended functionality.
While dismissing the current case, Judge McMahon left the door open for the plaintiffs to file an amended complaint. However, she expressed doubt about their ability to "allege a cognizable injury," according to Reuters. "Whether there is another statute or legal theory that does elevate this type of harm remains to be seen," McMahon said.
Raw Story's lawyer, Matt Topic, expressed confidence that the court's concerns would be addressed in a revised complaint. OpenAI has not yet commented on the decision.
A federal judge in New York has dismissed a lawsuit filed by news sites Raw Story and AlterNet against OpenAI, ruling that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate sufficient harm from the use of their articles as training data for AI.
The judge agreed with OpenAI's fair use argument, stating that ChatGPT synthesizes AI responses based on the training content, and the likelihood of an exact copy of an article is low. If it does occur, it is considered an error rather than a feature, and facts are not protected by copyright.
This decision may influence other ongoing lawsuits against AI companies, such as the legal dispute between the New York Times and OpenAI, as well as lawsuits filed by music companies against AI music generators.
OpenAI defeats news outlets' copyright lawsuit over AI training, for now
A New York federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit against artificial intelligence giant OpenAI that claimed it misused articles from news outlets Raw Story and AlterNet to train its large language models.
U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon said that the outlets could not show enough harm to support the lawsuit but allowed them to file a new complaint, even though she said she was "skeptical" that they could "allege a cognizable injury."
Raw Story's owners acquired AlterNet in 2018. Raw Story attorney Matt Topic of Loevy + Loevy said the outlets were "certain we can address the concerns the court identified through an amended complaint."
"We build our AI models using publicly available data, in a manner protected by fair use and related principles, and supported by long-standing and widely accepted legal precedents," an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement.
Raw Story and AlterNet filed the lawsuit in February. They said that thousands of their articles were used without permission to train OpenAI's popular chatbot ChatGPT and that it reproduces their copyrighted material when prompted.
The case is part of a wave of lawsuits against OpenAI and other tech companies by authors, visual artists, music publishers and other copyright owners over the data used to train their generative AI systems. A lawsuit filed by The New York Times against OpenAI in December was the first from a media outlet.