After the New York Times, three other newspapers have sued OpenAI and Microsoft for alleged copyright infringement. As The Verge reports, according to the accusers, the famous chatbot ChatGpt, in formulating its answers, would take, sometimes copying and pasting, entire texts of articles published in the media, without citing the source and author. The Intercept, Raw Story and AlterNet they filed separate lawsuits in the District of New York. All three cases are prosecuted by the same law firm.
The publications claim that ChatGpt not infrequently reproduces “literally or almost literally works of copyrighted journalism without providing information on author, title, terms of use.” According to the plaintiffs, if OpenAI wanted, it could make transparent the sources from which it takes his knowledge of the chatbot, making them explicit in the answers.
Raw Story and AlterNet go even further, stating that OpenAI and Microsoft “knew that ChatGpt would be less popular and generate less revenue if users knew that its responses infringed copyrights.” Meanwhile, according to a report from Adweek , Google has reportedly struck deals with some publishers to provide its generative artificial intelligence tools so that they publish stories written by AI, without journalistic review.
All as part of the Google News Initiative (Gni), a program that aims to fund media literacy projects, fact-checking tools and other media resources. In late 2023, The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, holding the two companies “liable for billions of dollars in legal and actual damages.” OpenAI asked a court to dismiss that claim, asserting that the Times took advantage of a bug in ChatGpt that caused article texts to be replicated word for word.