Judge allows newspapers' copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft to proceed
A U.S. federal judge ruled that a copyright lawsuit brought by The New York Times and other newspapers against OpenAI and Microsoft can proceed. The media organizations allege the AI companies used millions of their copyrighted articles without permission to train AI chatbots, causing business harm.
What happened
The New York Times and other media organizations including MediaNews Group and Tribune Publishing filed a lawsuit in December 2023 alleging that OpenAI and Microsoft used millions of copyrighted news articles to train their AI chatbots without permission.
On March 27, 2025, U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein ruled that while some claims were dismissed, the core copyright infringement allegations could proceed, potentially leading to a jury trial.
Reported impact
The New York Times has said OpenAI and Microsoft threatened its livelihood by stealing billions of dollars worth of work by its journalists, in some cases generating text that reproduces Times material verbatim.
Media organizations argue the case damages their business models as AI companies have unlawfully used their journalistic work to train large language models.
Index analysis
The ruling marks a significant development in the legal battle between AI developers and content creators over copyright protection and fair use doctrine.
The outcome could have major implications for the future of AI training practices and copyright law.
Governance controls
OpenAI stated it builds AI models using publicly available data in a manner grounded in fair use and supportive of innovation.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.