NYT, Others Seek Sanctions Against OpenAI Over Copyright
The Spin
Narrative A
AI companies have built billion-dollar products by stealing copyrighted content without paying a dime to the creators who made it valuable. OpenAI even stripped bylines and copyright notices before using publishers' work, and Sam Altman admitted these models can't exist without copyrighted material. When nearly 400 local newspapers have to sue just to get compensated, the system is broken.
Narrative B
Training AI on copyrighted works is fair use — federal judges in both Bartz v. Anthropic and Kadrey v. Meta ruled exactly that, finding the process highly transformative. The real legal line is piracy and indefinite storage, not the training itself. Publishers demanding licensing fees for AI training are pushing a legal theory courts have already rejected.