OpenAI appeals data preservation order in New York Times copyright case

OpenAI is appealing against an order in a copyright case brought by the New York Times that requires it to preserve ChatGPT output data indefinitely, arguing that the order conflicts with privacy commitments it has made with users.

Last month, a court said OpenAI had to preserve and segregate all output log data after the Times asked for the data to be preserved.

“We will fight any demand that compromises our users' privacy; this is a core principle,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a post on X on Thursday.

“We think [The Times’ demand] was an inappropriate request that sets a bad precedent.”

US district judge Sidney Stein was asked to vacate the May data preservation order on June 3, a court filing showed.

The New York Times declined to comment.

The newspaper sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023, accusing them of using millions of its articles without permission to train the large language model behind its popular chatbot.

Stein said in an April court opinion that the Times had made a case that OpenAI and Microsoft were responsible for inducing users to infringe its copyrights.

The opinion explained an earlier order that rejected parts of an OpenAI and Microsoft motion to dismiss, saying that the Times’ “numerous” and “widely publicised” examples of ChatGPT producing material from its articles justified allowing the claims to continue. 

Reuters