NY Times Copyright suit again OpenAI and Microsoft heating up!
The NewYorkTimes.com reported that “Court filings made Friday in a closely watched copyright trial pitting The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft invoked a wide range of material, including relevant copyright law, arts and sports.” The September 4, 2026 article entitled " Court Filings in A.I. Suit Invoke Copyright Law, Culture and Sports” (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/technology/openai-microsoft-new-york-times-lawsuit.html) included these comments from Reporters Mike Isaac and Karen Weise:
The suit, filed in 2023 by The Times and joined by a group of other news outlets, claims that OpenAI, a leading artificial intelligence start-up, and its partner Microsoft infringed on the publishers’ copyrighted material by using millions of their articles to train A.I. technologies. A.I. companies now compete with The Times as a source of information, the news outlet argued in its suit.
The briefs, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, largely boiled down to two questions: whether the publishers’ news articles were sufficiently “transformed” into an entirely new work by A.I., and whether A.I. produced content that “substituted” for news articles and harmed their value.
Friday was the last day the companies could file motions for a summary judgment that would head off a trial. Judge Sidney H. Stein is expected to make a ruling in the coming weeks.
The Times claimed that its articles were not transformed by the tech companies and not subject to “fair use” protections under copyright law. The Times also argued that A.I. products from OpenAI and Microsoft acted as a substitute for the outlet’s work. Lawyers for The Times said OpenAI and Microsoft had illegally copied news publishers’ articles in several ways in the process of building their A.I.
“The future not just of journalism but of responsible A.I., too, depends on preserving incentives for humans to produce the creative works on which a healthy society depends,” The Times wrote in its filing.
OpenAI and Microsoft have vigorously defended themselves against the suit’s claims. In its motion, Microsoft argued that existing copyright law “does not permit rights holders to block transformative technologies,” such as Microsoft’s A.I. product called Copilot.
In a separate but similar argument, OpenAI said in its filing that “these technologies put the world’s facts within reach of anyone who asks, in whatever form is most useful to them.”
“That is progress, and copyright law does not stand in its way,” the filing continued.
The court filings also meandered through a range of topics, including Lord Byron, Andy Warhol and the old New York Giants baseball team.
Stay tuned to see how this Copyright lawsuit goes!