Recently, a federal judge in New York ruled that the American news website The Intercept can continue part of its lawsuit against OpenAI. The lawsuit accuses OpenAI of violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) while training its AI models. The core issue involves OpenAI removing copyright management information, such as titles and author names, from news articles when creating the training data for ChatGPT. The Intercept believes this practice infringes on the protection of authorship.
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The judge overseeing the case, Jed S. Rakoff, dismissed some of the lawsuit's claims, particularly all allegations against Microsoft, but allowed the main DMCA complaint against OpenAI to proceed. In response, The Intercept's attorney Matt Topic stated, “This decision demonstrates that the DMCA provides crucial protections for news organizations against the encroachment of AI companies on their content.” He also described the ruling as a "landmark decision" that could have broader implications.
Currently, the court faces significant challenges in applying existing copyright laws to AI systems that use protected materials for training. Previously, another federal judge in New York dismissed a similar lawsuit against OpenAI filed by the news sites Raw Story and AlterNet. In that case, the judge noted that the issue was not the removal of copyright information but rather that OpenAI used the plaintiffs' articles without compensation.
In this case, Judge Rakoff believes that The Intercept may be able to prove specific damages due to the removal of copyright information, thus this issue will undergo further legal scrutiny. The Intercept filed its lawsuit in February as more media companies have taken legal action against OpenAI and Microsoft over various copyright issues arising from AI development, intensifying the wave of lawsuits. This preliminary ruling may mark the beginning of a lengthy legal battle surrounding the use of copyrighted content for AI model training.
Key Points:
📄 The Intercept is allowed to continue its lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing it of violating the DMCA.
⚖️ The judge dismissed the allegations against Microsoft but permitted the main complaint against OpenAI to proceed.
🔍 The court faces challenges in applying existing copyright laws to AI systems, and the case's outcome may impact broader copyright law.