OpenAI appeals order to preserve ChatGPT data in NYT lawsuit
What's the story
OpenAI has appealed a court order in a copyright case filed by The New York Times. The order requires the company to preserve ChatGPT output data indefinitely, which it argues goes against its privacy commitments to users. CEO Sam Altman has strongly opposed the request, calling it inappropriate and a bad precedent, and is seeking its reversal.
Legal battle
'We'll fight any demand that compromises our users' privacy'
Last month, a court ordered OpenAI to preserve and segregate all output log data after The New York Times requested the same. Responding to this, Altman said on X, "We will fight any demand that compromises our users' privacy; this is a core principle." He added that The Times's demand was an inappropriate request that sets a bad precedent.
Appeal filed
The NYT's lawsuit against OpenAI, Microsoft
On June 3, a court filing showed that US District Judge Sidney Stein was asked to vacate the May data preservation order. The New York Times has not yet responded to a request for comment, Reuters reports. The newspaper had previously sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023, accusing them of using millions of its articles without permission to train their large language models.
Court ruling
Judge Stein's earlier ruling
In an April court opinion, Judge Stein said The New York Times had made a case that OpenAI and Microsoft were responsible for inducing users to infringe its copyrights. The ruling explained an earlier order that rejected parts of an OpenAI and Microsoft motion to dismiss, saying that The Times's "numerous" and "widely publicized" examples of ChatGPT producing material from its articles justified allowing the claims to continue.