NEW YORK (Diya TV) — A group of major U.S. newspapers has asked a federal judge to sanction OpenAI in an ongoing copyright lawsuit that could shape the future of artificial intelligence and the news industry. The publishers claim OpenAI failed to provide key evidence during the legal process. Meanwhile, OpenAI strongly denies the allegations and says it continues to protect user privacy while defending its use of copyrighted material under U.S. law.
The latest court filing marks another major step in the high-profile legal battle between news organizations and AI companies. At the center of the dispute is whether OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, used millions of copyrighted news articles without permission to train AI models such as ChatGPT.
The New York Times, the New York Daily News, and several other publishers filed the motion Thursday in federal court in Manhattan. They argue that OpenAI withheld important datasets and ChatGPT logs that could reveal how the company trained its AI systems. As a result, the newspapers want the court to impose sanctions for what they describe as discovery misconduct.
The publishers also claim recent testimony from an OpenAI employee conflicts with the company’s earlier statements about its ability to search training datasets for copyrighted material. Therefore, they argue that OpenAI failed to meet its legal obligations during the discovery process.
Steven Lieberman, an attorney representing the New York Daily News and several affiliated newspapers, accused OpenAI of making misleading statements over the past two years. He said the company concealed evidence that could show ChatGPT relied on copyrighted journalism during training. He also argued that the missing information could play a major role in the case.
However, OpenAI rejected those claims. Company spokesperson Drew Pusateri said the accusations are false and argued that the lawsuit has shifted as some claims against the company have weakened. He also said OpenAI continues to protect the privacy of ChatGPT users and supports the long-standing legal principle of fair use.
The legal fight began in late 2023 when The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft. The newspaper alleged that the companies used its reporting without permission to develop AI products that compete with traditional news organizations. Since then, several other publishers have joined the lawsuit, including the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, Ziff Davis, and the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting.
The dispute comes as AI tools continue to change how people search for information online. Many publishers argue that AI-generated answers reduce traffic to their websites because users often receive information without clicking on the original news source. As a result, many media companies worry about declining advertising revenue and fewer digital subscriptions.
At the same time, OpenAI and other technology companies argue that training AI models on publicly available content qualifies as fair use under U.S. copyright law. They say AI systems learn patterns from large collections of text instead of copying complete works. Even so, courts across the United States continue to examine that legal argument in dozens of copyright lawsuits.
The outcome of those cases could affect not only news organizations but also authors, artists, musicians, and other creators. Several creative groups have already filed lawsuits against AI companies over the use of copyrighted works in AI training.
In one of the largest AI copyright settlements so far, OpenAI competitor Anthropic agreed to pay book authors $1.5 billion to resolve claims involving pirated books used to train its Claude chatbot. That agreement highlighted the growing legal and financial risks facing AI developers.
Meanwhile, The New York Times has continued to invest heavily in its legal efforts. Financial filings show the newspaper has spent more than $28 million on litigation involving AI companies. Those expenses include a separate lawsuit against AI startup Perplexity. The newspapers now want the court to require OpenAI to cover attorney fees connected to efforts to obtain evidence they believe the company improperly withheld.
While some publishers continue to fight in court, others have taken a different path. A growing number of media companies have signed licensing agreements with OpenAI, Google, and Meta. Those deals allow AI companies to use news content for training in exchange for payment. The Associated Press became the first major news organization to announce such an agreement with OpenAI in 2023.
