CIR Files New Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against OpenAI and Microsoft

The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) has sued OpenAI and tech giant Microsoft for alleged copyright infringement. 

The lawsuit, filed in a New York federal court, accuses both companies of using content from CIR’s publications, including Mother Jones and the Reveal podcast, without proper authorization or compensation. This marks yet another legal challenge for OpenAI following the release of its popular AI model, ChatGPT.

Details of the lawsuit

According to the complaint, OpenAI and Microsoft have utilized vast amounts of journalistic content from CIR to train their artificial intelligence models, specifically the earlier versions of ChatGPT. The analysis conducted by a data scientist revealed that the OpenWebText database, used by OpenAI, contained over 17,000 URLs from Mother Jones and more than 400 from Reveal. 

These figures point to substantial use of copyrighted materials gathered through processes that allegedly stripped articles of headers, footers, and copyright notices to focus solely on the article content.

Monika Bauerlein, CEO of CIR, stated, “The exploitation of journalism for corporate gain without fair compensation undermines the very foundation of our work.” The lawsuit emphasizes that the defendants could have chosen to respect journalistic works but opted not to.

Technological and ethical concerns

The complaint further details the technologies used by OpenAI, such as the Dragnet and Newspaper algorithms, designed to extract main content from web pages while potentially omitting essential elements like author names and copyright information. 

The plaintiff argues that this data scraping method facilitated copyright infringement on a large scale, directly impacting the revenues and rights of the original content creators. Moreover, the lawsuit alleges that Microsoft was aware that the scraped data lacked essential identifying information, thereby contributing to the infringement issues now being challenged by Bing AI and ChatGPT’s functionalities.

Implications and previous legal actions

This lawsuit adds to the growing list of legal battles OpenAI and Microsoft have faced concerning copyright issues since ChatGPT’s introduction. Other notable publications, such as the New York Times, The Intercept, the New York Daily News, and the Chicago Tribune, have also initiated legal proceedings against the tech entities.

In contrast, several prominent publishers and digital platforms have opted for licensing agreements with OpenAI, allowing lawful use of their archives. Partnerships with entities like TIME Magazine, News Corp, the Financial Times, Vox Media, the Associated Press, The Atlantic, Stack Overflow, and Reddit highlight a different approach to managing AI’s expansive use of copyrighted materials.

The Center for Investigative Reporting seeks compensation for the alleged unauthorized use of their copyrighted works, including profits obtained by OpenAI and Microsoft through CIR content. The damages sought include a minimum of $750 for each infringed work and $2,500 for each violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

As the legal proceedings unfold, the outcome of this case could have significant implications for the operations of AI companies and their use of publicly available digital content in training AI models. The technology community and copyright holders alike are keenly observing these developments, which are set to establish precedents in the intersection of AI technology and copyright law.

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