OpenAI has notched a victory in its ongoing legal fight against publishers over how its AI tools use creative work. On November 7, a judge dismissed a copyright case against the startup brought by independent publishers Alternet and Raw Story.
While several publishers have lined up content deals with OpenAI—including WIRED parent company Condé Nast—dozens of copyright lawsuits against AI startups are winding their way through the US court system. Many of these complaints allege direct copyright infringement, arguing that it’s illegal for AI companies to train their tools on news articles, books, paintings, and other copyrighted materials without permission. Some also include other claims ranging from trademark law violation to violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a copyright law intended as an anti-piracy statute that is now broadly deployed by intellectual property rights holders.
The complaint brought by Alternet and Raw Story focused on the DMCA, arguing that OpenAI broke the law by scraping thousands of news articles and stripping them of “copyright management information” (CMI) like the author’s name, the terms and conditions for use of the work, and the title of the work. The outlets asked for statutory damages of no less than $2,500 per violation, arguing OpenAI knew that stripping training data of CMI would result in copyright infringement from ChatGPT when it summarized or “regurgitated” articles without proper attribution.
OpenAI argued that the publishers had no legal standing to bring this claim, stating they failed to offer proof that ChatGPT was trained on their material, let alone that the training was harmful. Judge Colleen McMahon of the US Southern District of New York agreed with OpenAI’s argument, dismissing the case for lack of standing.
“We build our AI models using publicly available data, in a manner protected by fair use and related principles, and supported by long-standing and widely accepted legal precedents,” says OpenAI spokesperson Jason Deutrom.
Although this is a major setback for Alternet and Raw Story, it’s not necessarily the end. “We do intend to continue the case,” says Raw Story founder and CEO John Byrne. The next step is requesting permission from the judge to file an amended complaint.
“We’re confident that we can address the court’s concerns in an amended complaint,” says Matt Topic, a partner at Loevy & Loevy, the firm representing Raw Story Media. While Judge McMahon describes herself as “skeptical” that the outlets could “allege a cognizable injury” in the dismissal, her ruling does indicate that she’s open to considering a new filing.
