Court ruling allows publishers to pursue copyright claims against AI companies

A federal court ruling has opened the door for news publishers to pursue copyright claims against AI companies, marking a significant development in the ongoing tension between journalism and artificial intelligence. The judge’s decision to allow most claims to proceed establishes a potential precedent for how copyright law applies to AI training on published content, highlighting the complex balance between technological innovation and protecting intellectual property in news media.

The big picture: A federal judge has allowed The New York Times and other newspapers to proceed with most of their copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft over the use of news articles to train AI chatbots.

• U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein dismissed some claims but permitted the core of the case to continue, potentially leading to a jury trial.
• The ruling represents a significant legal test for how copyright protections apply to AI systems trained on published journalistic content.

What they’re saying: News publishers view the ruling as validation of their central argument about copyright infringement.

• New York Times attorney Ian Crosby stated they will continue pursuing claims against Microsoft and OpenAI for “widespread theft of millions of The Times’s works.”
• Frank Pine, executive editor of MediaNews Group and Tribune Publishing, emphasized that the dismissed claims don’t undermine their core argument that these companies have stolen their work.

The other side: OpenAI maintains that their approach to training AI models is legally sound.

• The company states they build their AI models using publicly available data, grounded in fair use principles that support innovation.
• The Associated Press has taken a different approach, establishing a licensing and technology agreement with OpenAI that allows access to part of AP’s text archives.

Why this matters: The lawsuit highlights fundamental questions about content ownership in the AI era and could reshape how AI companies approach training data.

• The Times alleges that OpenAI and Microsoft have threatened publishers’ livelihoods by effectively stealing billions of dollars worth of journalistic work.
• The case could establish important precedents regarding whether AI companies must compensate news organizations when using their content for training purposes.