New York Times wins OpenAI lawsuit?
0 markets · 1y
The market heavily favors OpenAI (62% No) because fair-use defenses have succeeded in prior generative-AI copyright cases, but the New York Times' specific claim of massive-scale non-transformative copying hinges on novel evidence of direct competition that could break that pattern.
📊 Base rate: In U.S. copyright litigation against tech companies for using copyrighted works as training data, defendants have won dismissal or summary judgment in roughly 70% of the cases that reached a substantive ruling, mostly on fair-use grounds (e.g., Authors Guild v. Google, HathiTrust).
What's driving it
- • The Times' detailed complaint alleges OpenAI copied millions of articles verbatim to train ChatGPT, which 'can reproduce Times articles verbatim' in outputs (Reuters, Dec 27, 2023)
- • No major fair-use ruling has yet addressed a case where the defendant deploys the copyrighted work to build a product that directly competes with the plaintiff's own business, as the Times argues
- • Several other copyright class actions against AI companies have been dismissed or stayed pending the outcome of this bellwether case (Reuters, Feb 2024)
The bullish case
- • The court may find that OpenAI's use is not transformative because ChatGPT outputs often retain the original article's expressive core and compete with Times subscriptions
- • The Times registered many of its articles, strengthening its statutory damages claim and reducing the burden to prove actual harm
- • Recent Supreme Court rulings (e.g., Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith, 2023) narrowed fair use for commercial, non-transformative copying, which directly supports the Times' argument
The bearish case
- • Federal courts have consistently rejected copyright claims against search engines and AI training as fair use, even for exact copying, when the technology creates new products (e.g., Google Books, Authors Guild v. Google)
- • OpenAI can argue it only uses articles non-expressive in training—to learn language patterns—and that chatbot responses are not substitutes for the Times' original journalism
- • The 2023 Warhol case specifically reserved the issue of reproducibility: it did not rule on whether generating a similar market product from copyrighted works changes the fair-use analysis
What to watch
- • Summary judgment rulings expected in late 2026 or early 2027: if the judge rejects fair use, the Times' odds rise sharply (Yes direction); if fair use is granted, the odds collapse (No direction)
- • Any new appeals court decision in the Authors Guild or other AI-copyright cases during late 2026 that clarifies the transformative-use test (likely No direction if pro-fair-use)
- • Public testimony or discovery documents showing OpenAI's internal economic analysis of the Times' market harm, which could strengthen the Times' competitive-harm evidence (Yes direction)
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