Microsoft and OpenAI Workers Worry About ‘Largest Theft of Labor’ in History; The New York Times, September 17, 2026

Karen Weise and Mike Isaac , The New York Times; Microsoft and OpenAI Workers Worry About ‘Largest Theft of Labor’ in History

Newly unsealed court documents showed concern within Microsoft and OpenAI over the use of millions of news articles to develop A.I. systems.

"Newly unsealed court documents showed considerable concern within Microsoft and its close partner OpenAI over the use of millions of news articles to develop artificial intelligence systems.

As OpenAI was forging ahead with its work, Microsoft employees debated whether what OpenAI was doing represented the “largest theft of labor in human history” and could create a “doom loop” that could ultimately threaten the quality of the large language models they were building...

Snippets of those discussions were made public on Thursday as part of a closely watched lawsuit The New York Times filed against OpenAI and Microsoft in late 2023. Eleven other publishers have joined the suit. Judge Sidney H. Stein of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York is considering motions for a summary judgment. Documents related to the case are slowly being unsealed as the judge considers those motions.

The publishers argue that the tech companies violated copyright law by scraping millions of their stories off the internet and other databases, and using the text, without approval or pay, to train advanced A.I. systems.

Microsoft and OpenAI contend their work was covered under legal protections for “fair use” of copyrighted material. They say the articles were sufficiently transformed into entirely new work by A.I., and were not substitutes that harm the value of the original work."

Court Filings in A.I. Suit Invoke Copyright Law, Culture and Sports; The New York Times, September 4, 2026

Mike Isaac and Karen Weise , The New York Times; Court Filings in A.I. Suit Invoke Copyright Law, Culture and Sports

Filings made Friday in The New York Times’s closely watched lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft included a range of copyright law and cultural references.

"Court filings made Friday in a closely watched copyright trial pitting The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft invoked a wide range of material, including relevant copyright law, arts and sports.

The suit, filed in 2023 by The Times and joined by a group of other news outlets, claims that OpenAI, a leading artificial intelligence start-up, and its partner Microsoft infringed on the publishers’ copyrighted material by using millions of their articles to train A.I. technologies. A.I. companies now compete with The Times as a source of information, the news outlet argued in its suit.

The briefs, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, largely boiled down to two questions: whether the publishers’ news articles were sufficiently “transformed” into an entirely new work by A.I., and whether A.I. produced content that “substituted” for news articles and harmed their value.

Friday was the last day the companies could file motions for a summary judgment that would head off a trial. Judge Sidney H. Stein is expected to make a ruling in the coming weeks."

Justice Dept. Sides With OpenAI in New York Times Copyright Suit; The New York Times, September 2, 2026

 Karen Weise and Mike Isaac, The New York Times; Justice Dept. Sides With OpenAI in New York Times Copyright Suit

"The Justice Department told a Manhattan federal court that it was in the national interest for the judge to find that OpenAI did not violate copyright law when it used articles by The New York Times and other publishers to develop artificial intelligence systems.

The filing late Tuesday was the first time the Justice Department weighed in on the use of copyrighted material by A.I. companies, which has led to several lawsuits, including one brought by The Times.

The Justice Department argued that developing A.I. was critical to national security, and that training A.I. systems sufficiently transformed the written works to new material allowed under copyright law. It said the benefits of A.I. “far outweigh any competitive harm.”

The government’s intervention is an escalation in the landmark litigation that could determine whether OpenAI violated the law when it was developing its A.I. systems and had harmed the news industry and other content creators...

The Times’s lawsuit is one of many amid a wave of legal action against A.I. companies over copyright claims."

Justice Department Subpoenas New York Times Journalists Who Reported About Trump's New Plane; Reason, July 13, 2026

 JOE LANCASTER , Reason; Justice Department Subpoenas New York Times Journalists Who Reported About Trump's New Plane

The government says the reporters are not targets of the investigation, but such subpoenas can still have a chilling effect on the press.

"Officials are often overly aggressive in pursuing leaks of classified information, but President Donald Trump remains in a league of his own.

"The Trump administration issued subpoenas on Friday to several journalists for The New York Times," Michael M. Grynbaum wrote Saturday for the paper, "after the news outlet reported this week on security concerns involving President Trump's new Qatari-donated Air Force One."

The subpoenas—which "in some cases" were "delivered by federal agents who showed up at reporters' homes"—"seek to force the reporters to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan on Wednesday," Grynbaum added. The summonses were issued by Jay Clayton, who currently serves as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and has been nominated as the next director of national intelligence.

"The appearance of federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects," New York Times deputy general counsel David McCraw said in a statement. "This brazen act should be seen as nothing more than an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs.""

White House Directed Patel to Oversee Investigation Involving Times Reporting; The New York Times, July 11, 2026

 Devlin BarrettGlenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman, The New York Times ; White House Directed Patel to Oversee Investigation Involving Times Reporting

"The White House directed Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, to oversee a leak investigation into reporting by The New York Times about security issues with the new Air Force One, leading to a flurry of subpoenas to several Times reporters Friday night, according to people with knowledge of the situation."

NYT slams Microsoft for building copyright-infringing supercomputer for OpenAI; Ars Technica, June 26, 2026

ASHLEY BELANGER , Ars Technica; NYT slams Microsoft for building copyright-infringing supercomputer for OpenAI

"In a heavily redacted court filing Thursday, The New York Times proposed to amend its copyright complaint against OpenAI and Microsoft to clarify a claim and allege that Microsoft actively encouraged OpenAI to steal NYT works by building a bespoke supercomputing system ranked among the most powerful in the world."

The New York Times Amends Lawsuit Against OpenAI and Microsoft; The New York Times, June 25, 2026

Cade Metz , The New York Times; The New York Times Amends Lawsuit Against OpenAI and Microsoft

"The New York Times amended its lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft on Thursday, modifying one claim against Microsoft and dropping another against OpenAI, according to a legal filing in federal court...

In a filing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Thursday, The Times accused Microsoft of encouraging OpenAI to train its A.I. systems using copyrighted articles from The Times and of providing services designed to help with this training.

The Times also dropped a claim from its original lawsuit, filed in 2023, accusing OpenAI of “secondarily” infringing on its copyrights because it did not prevent consumers and businesses from generating copyrighted material using A.I."

Book on Truth in the Age of A.I. Contains Quotes Made Up by A.I.; The New York Times, May 19, 2026

 Benjamin Mullin, The New York Times; Book on Truth in the Age of A.I. Contains Quotes Made Up by A.I.

"The author of a nonfiction book about the effects of artificial intelligence on truth acknowledged on Monday that he had included numerous made-up or misattributed quotes concocted by A.I.

The author, Steven Rosenbaum, whose book “The Future of Truth” was released this month to great fanfare, incorporated more than a half-dozen misattributed or fake quotes in sections of the book reviewed by The New York Times.

The Times asked Mr. Rosenbaum about the quotes on Sunday and Monday. On Monday night, Mr. Rosenbaum acknowledged in a statement that the book had “a handful of improperly attributed or synthetic quotes” and said that he had started his own investigation.

He said that the inclusion of the incorrect quotes was an accident and that he had “no intention of fabricating any viewpoints” while writing the book.

“As I disclosed in the book’s acknowledgments, I used A.I. tools ChatGPT and Claude during the research, writing and editing process,” Mr. Rosenbaum said in the statement. “That does not excuse these errors, of which I take full responsibility. I am now working with the editors to thoroughly review and quickly correct any affected passages; any future editions will be corrected.”

“The Future of Truth” was published by an imprint of BenBella Books and distributed by Simon and Schuster. BenBella Books, which operates independently of Simon and Schuster, did not respond to a request for comment. Simon and Schuster declined to comment."

Judge slams key OpenAI witness in copyright infringement case for ‘hazy recollections’; New York Daily News via Chicago Tribune, April 9, 2026

MOLLY CRANE-NEWMAN , New York Daily News via Chicago Tribune; Judge slams key OpenAI witness in copyright infringement case for ‘hazy recollections’

"An unimpressed Manhattan judge ordered a corporate representative for OpenAI to undergo a second deposition after finding he failed to answer “even the simplest questions” the first time around about what the company has described as efforts to limit chatbots from stealing writers’ work.

​Magistrate Judge Ona Wang, in a sharply-worded 11-page order Tuesday, said OpenAI had been put on notice that the company’s purported expert on plagiarism John Vincent “Vinnie” Monaco was woefully underprepared for his January deposition, ordering him to submit to 3.5 more hours of questioning that took place Wednesday.

​In granting a motion from the Chicago Tribune, New York Times and other news outlets suing OpenAI to compel the additional testimony, Wang deferred ruling on a request for sanctions, saying it would depend on how Monaco fared in his do-over. She said she may issue fines or recommend some of his answers be deemed as admissions.

​OpenAI has previously said that Monaco has more knowledge than any of its engineers about Project Giraffe, an internal operation which the company claims is designed to develop ways to limit its learning language models, or LLMs, from inadvertently regurgitating copyrighted works — the issue at the core of the ongoing Manhattan Federal Court lawsuit."

The New York Times drops freelance journalist who used AI to write book review; The Guardian, March 31, 2026

  Emma Loffhagen, The Guardian; The New York Times drops freelance journalist who used AI to write book review

"The New York Times has cut ties with a freelance journalist after discovering he used artificial intelligence to help write a book review that echoed elements of a review of the same book in the Guardian.

It came after a New York Times reader flagged similarities between the paper’s January review of Watching Over Her by Jean-Baptiste Andrea,written by author and journalist Alex Preston, and an August review of the same book written by Christobel Kent in the Guardian.

The New York Times launched an investigation, during which Preston admitted that he had used AI to assist writing the review and did not spot the sections that were pulled from the Guardian before submitting it. In a statement to the Guardian on Tuesday, Preston said that he was “hugely embarrassed” and had “made a serious mistake”."

Trump Is Said to Have Dropped Demand for Cash From Harvard; The New York Times, February 2, 2026

 Michael C. Bender, Michael S. Schmidt and Alan Blinder, The New York Times ; Trump Is Said to Have Dropped Demand for Cash From Harvard 

Hours after The Times reported that President Trump had lowered the bar for a deal, he denied backtracking and made new threats against Harvard.

"President Trump has backtracked on a major point in negotiations with Harvard, dropping his administration’s demand for a $200 million payment to the government in hopes of finally resolving the administration’s conflicts with the university, according to four people briefed on the matter.

Harvard has been the top target in Mr. Trump’s sweeping campaign to exert more control over higher education. Hard-liners in his administration had wanted Harvard to write a check to the U.S. Treasury as part of a deal to address claims that university officials mishandled antisemitism, The New York Times previously reported. But Harvard, wary of backlash from liberal students and faculty, has rejected the idea.

Trump administration officials have indicated in recent days that the president no longer expects such a payment, according to the Harvard and Trump officials briefed on the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

But shortly before midnight, six hours after The Times reported that Mr. Trump had backtracked, he claimed the story was wrong and attacked The Times and Harvard. He said he was now seeking $1 billion “in damages” from Harvard and that the administration’s investigations of Harvard should now be criminal."

The New York Times sues Perplexity for producing ‘verbatim’ copies of its work; The Verge, December 5, 2025

Emma Roth, The Verge; The New York Times sues Perplexity for producing ‘verbatim’ copies of its work

"The New York Times has escalated its legal battle against the AI startup Perplexity, as it’s now suing the AI “answer engine” for allegedly producing and profiting from responses that are “verbatim or substantially similar copies” of the publication’s work.

The lawsuit, filed in a New York federal court on Friday, claims Perplexity “unlawfully crawls, scrapes, copies, and distributes” content from the NYT. It comes after the outlet’s repeated demands for Perplexity to stop using content from its website, as the NYT sent cease-and-desist notices to the AI startup last year and most recently in July, according to the lawsuit. The Chicago Tribune also filed a copyright lawsuit against Perplexity on Thursday."

The New York Times is suing Perplexity for copyright infringement; TechCrunch, December 5, 2025

Rebecca Bellan , TechCrunch; The New York Times is suing Perplexity for copyright infringement

"The New York Times filed suit Friday against AI search startup Perplexity for copyright infringement, its second lawsuit against an AI company. The Times joins several media outlets suing Perplexity, including the Chicago Tribune, which also filed suit this week."

OpenAI loses fight to keep ChatGPT logs secret in copyright case; Reuters, December 3, 2025

  Blake Brittain, Reuters ; OpenAI loses fight to keep ChatGPT logs secret in copyright case

"OpenAI must produce millions of anonymized chat logs from ChatGPT users in its high-stakes copyright dispute with the New York Times and other news outlets, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Ona Wang in a decision made public on Wednesday said that the 20 million logs were relevant to the outlets' claims and that handing them over would not risk violating users' privacy."

New York Times Sues Pentagon Over First Amendment Rights; The New York Times, December 4, 2025

 Erik Wemple, The New York Times ; New York Times Sues Pentagon Over First Amendment Rights

"The New York Times accused the Pentagon in a lawsuit on Thursday of infringing on the constitutional rights of journalists by imposing a set of new restrictions on reporting about the military.

In the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington, The Times argued that the Defense Department’s new policy violated the First Amendment and “seeks to restrict journalists’ ability to do what journalists have always done — ask questions of government employees and gather information to report stories that take the public beyond official pronouncements.”

The rules, which went into effect in October, are a stark departure from the previous ones, in both length and scope. They require reporters to sign a 21-page form that sets restrictions on journalistic activities, including requests for story tips and inquiries to Pentagon sources. Reporters who don’t comply could lose their press passes, and the Pentagon has accorded itself “unbridled discretion” to enforce the policy as it sees fit, according to the lawsuit."

Copyright Cases Should Not Threaten Chatbot Users’ Privacy; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), June 23, 2025

TORI NOBLE, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); Copyright Cases Should Not Threaten Chatbot Users’ Privacy

"Like users of all technologies, ChatGPT users deserve the right to delete their personal data. Nineteen U.S. States, the European Union, and a host of other countries already protect users’ right to delete. For years, OpenAI gave users the option to delete their conversations with ChatGPT, rather than let their personal queries linger on corporate servers. Now, they can’t. A badly misguided court order in a copyright lawsuit requires OpenAI to store all consumer ChatGPT conversations indefinitely—even if a user tries to delete them. This sweeping order far outstrips the needs of the case and sets a dangerous precedent by disregarding millions of users’ privacy rights.

The privacy harms here are significant. ChatGPT’s 300+ million users submit over 1 billion messages to its chatbots per day, often for personal purposes. Virtually any personal use of a chatbot—anything from planning family vacations and daily habits to creating social media posts and fantasy worlds for Dungeons and Dragons games—reveal personal details that, in aggregate, create a comprehensive portrait of a person’s entire life. Other uses risk revealing people’s most sensitive information. For example, tens of millions of Americans use ChatGPT to obtain medical and financial information. Notwithstanding other risks of these uses, people still deserve privacy rights like the right to delete their data. Eliminating protections for user-deleted data risks chilling beneficial uses by individuals who want to protect their privacy."

OpenAI to appeal copyright ruling in NY Times case as Altman calls for 'AI privilege'; Foxbusiness, June 6, 2025

Bradford Betz, Foxbusiness; OpenAI to appeal copyright ruling in NY Times case as Altman calls for 'AI privilege'

"The OpenAI co-founder said the case has accelerated the need for a conversation about "AI privilege," in which "talking to an AI should be like talking to a lawyer or a doctor.""

Judge calls out OpenAI’s “straw man” argument in New York Times copyright suit; Ars Technica, April 4, 2025

ASHLEY BELANGER , Ars Technica; Judge calls out OpenAI’s “straw man” argument in New York Times copyright suit

"Essentially, the judge agreed with the NYT that OpenAI has not yet provided any evidence that the newspaper knew how ChatGPT would perform until the product was out in the wild. Therefore, he denied OpenAI's motion to dismiss those claims as time-barred, while denouncing as a "straw man" an OpenAI argument that the NYT, "as a 'sophisticated publisher,' had a duty 'to take prompt action after being put on notice of what it now claims to be alleged infringement.'""

Judge allows 'New York Times' copyright case against OpenAI to go forward; NPR, March 27, 2025

Bobby Allyn, NPR ; Judge allows 'New York Times' copyright case against OpenAI to go forward

"A federal judge on Wednesday rejected OpenAI's request to toss out a copyright lawsuit from The New York Times that alleges that the tech company exploited the newspaper's content without permission or payment.

In an order allowing the lawsuit to go forward, Judge Sidney Stein, of the Southern District of New York, narrowed the scope of the lawsuit but allowed the case's main copyright infringement claims to go forward.

Stein did not immediately release an opinion but promised one would come "expeditiously."

The decision is a victory for the newspaper, which has joined forces with other publishers, including The New York Daily News and the Center for Investigative Reporting, to challenge the way that OpenAI collected vast amounts of data from the web to train its popular artificial intelligence service, ChatGPT."

News organizations sue OpenAI over copyright infringement claims; Jurist.org, January 16, 2025

 Harjaap Ahluwalia | Osgoode Hall Law School, CA, Jurist.org; News organizations sue OpenAI over copyright infringement claims

"The case centers on allegations that OpenAI unlawfully utilized copyrighted content from various publishers, including The New York Times, to train its generative AI models and the hearing could determine whether OpenAI will face trial.

The plaintiffs claim that ChatGPT’s ability to generate human-like responses stems from the unauthorized use of their work without permission or compensation to develop their large language models (LLMs). OpenAI and its financial backer Microsoft argue that its use of data is protected under the fair use doctrine, which allows limited use of copyrighted material without permission for purposes such as commentary, criticism or education.

Additionally, OpenAI’s legal team asserts that The New York Times has not demonstrated actual harm resulting from their practices and that its use of the copyrighted material is transformative as it does not replicate the content verbatim. On the other hand, the plaintiffs are arguing copyright infringement because OpenAI removed identifiable information such as author bylines and publication details when using the content. They also contend that the LLMs absorb and reproduce expressions from the training data without genuine understanding."