Microsoft has counterattacked The New York Times, accusing the media giant of engaging in “doomsday futurology” for predicting that ChatGPT could detrimentally impact the news industry. The response comes as Microsoft seeks to dismiss a lawsuit alleging copyright infringement against OpenAI, the creator of the artificial intelligence bot, which Microsoft has committed $13 billion to.
In a motion filed in a Manhattan court, Microsoft drew a parallel between The New York Times and Hollywood studios attempting to impede the introduction of the VCR in the 1980s, framing the newspaper as hindering a “groundbreaking new technology.”
The legal action initiated by The New York Times in December marked the first major lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. The lawsuit contends that the tech companies unlawfully copied millions of articles to construct the ChatGPT program. The news organization is seeking billions of dollars in damages, alleging an unauthorized use of its journalistic investment to build substitutive products.
Microsoft’s court brief on Monday argued that copyright law posed no more of an obstacle to the large language model (LLM) used by ChatGPT than it did to historical innovations such as the VCR, personal computer, or search engine. Microsoft maintained that the content used to train tools like ChatGPT does not undermine the market for the original works.
The tech giant’s lawyers further contended that the examples of alleged copyright infringement presented in The New York Times’ complaint were based on “unrealistic prompts” that did not accurately represent real-world usage of GPT-based tools.
Microsoft’s filing follows OpenAI’s response to the NYT lawsuit in January, where the AI start-up claimed that it had “intentionally manipulated” its chatbot to avoid copyright infringement, attributing regurgitated content to ChatGPT’s “inadvertent memorization.”
In its own motion to dismiss filed last month, OpenAI argued that ChatGPT is not a substitute for a subscription to The New York Times, asserting that users cannot use ChatGPT to serve up Times articles at will.
Responding to Microsoft’s filing, NYT’s lawyer, Ian Crosby, criticized the comparison of large language models to the VCR, stating that VCR makers never argued for massive copyright infringement to build their products. Crosby emphasized that the Times discovered its allegedly stolen works, and Microsoft’s blame-shifting is an attempt to excuse wrongdoing.
The NYT case is one of several lawsuits against ChatGPT’s creators and investors, including notable authors John Grisham and Jodi Picoult. Microsoft, as OpenAI’s major backer, has committed substantial funding to fuel growth and provide technical infrastructure. In return, Microsoft is entitled to up to 49% of OpenAI’s profits.