By Rajwa Quasim
Executives and senior employees at OpenAI and Microsoft recognized internally, even before the lawsuit against the companies, that their artificial intelligence products could seriously disrupt the news industry, even as the companies continued to train their AI models using large amounts of copyrighted content.
The disclosures were included in a filing connected to The New York Times’ copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. The Times accuses the companies of using millions of copyrighted news articles to train AI systems without permission or payment. It argues that ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot can provide information directly to users, potentially reducing the need to visit original news websites.
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The internal discussions revealed that some employees at both companies had identified the potential threat to publishers. Nick Turley, one of the executives overseeing ChatGPT, wrote in an internal communication that publishers faced an “existential threat” from AI products that were already “largely substitutive” and would become more so as they improve.
Microsoft Director of Applied Science Brent Hecht alleged that the underlying copying practices amounted to “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions.” He added, “It is highly unusual that an end-product threatens the economic foundations of its essential suppliers, but that is the situation we have created for our LLM business with respect to its ‘content supply chain.’”
Hecht warned that if AI models take information from websites but send fewer users back to those sites, publishers could lose traffic and revenue. That could lead publishers to produce less original content or reduce the quality of their work. Eventually, AI companies could have less reliable new information available to train their models, he argued.
These internal warnings by employees at the companies contrast with the positions OpenAI and Microsoft have taken in defending themselves against copyright claims.
One potentially significant disclosure in the filing involves reactions from company executives to efforts to bypass The New York Times’ paywall. OpenAI President Greg Brockman responded “ahead nice” after a company researcher reported finding a way around the paywall.
TechCrunch reported that about 91,692 copies of works published by various media outlets were included in OpenAI’s mid-training datasets.
The New York Times filed its lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft in December 2023, accusing the companies of using copyrighted articles to train AI models without authorization. In April 2024, the Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News and other newspapers owned by Alden Global Capital filed similar lawsuits. Those cases were later combined with other copyright claims against the companies.
Microsoft distanced itself from Hecht’s comments, saying they did not represent the company’s position. A Microsoft spokesperson said the remarks “reflect one employee’s individual perspective, are not a legal analysis, and do not represent the company’s views.”
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OpenAI and Microsoft have argued that the fair use doctrine allows them to use copyrighted material without permission in certain circumstances.
The Trump administration has supported OpenAI in the copyright dispute. The U.S. government previously filed a statement supporting the AI company in the case.
A New York Times spokesperson criticized the administration’s position, saying, “the administration is siding with a handful of trillion-dollar AI companies at the expense of countless American creators.”