Microsoft is fighting back against the New York Times’ copyright infringement case

Right now, the New York Times is at war with OpenAI, and Microsoft, not too long ago, the company filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft alleging that the companies’ LLMs use the New York Times’ copyrighted works and reproduces sections of them verbatim when prompted. This could constitute copyright infringement and may impact the publication’s revenue. Well, Microsoft is fighting back against the New York Times.

The New York Times shares the same concerns that many people and publications share on the matter of artificial intelligence. Right now, the legality of using copyrighted material to train LLMs is still up in the air. The legal system is still trying to figure out how to go about this topic. So, until then, more lawsuits like these are sure to pop up.

Microsoft fights back against the claims presented by the New York Times

We’re not sure how long this case is going to drag on. Both sides presented strong cases. Now, according to the report, Microsoft wants the court to dismiss certain parts of the New York Times’ case against it and OpenAI. The company officially filed a motion to dismiss them.

In total, Microsoft wants the court to dismiss three parts of the claim. Firstly, Microsoft wants the court to dismiss the accusation that both companies misappropriated time-sensitive breaking news. Next, it wants the court to dismiss the New York Times’ accusation that the companies committed end-user copyright infringement through ChatGPT and other chatbots. At this point, we don’t know the third part that Microsoft wants the court to dismiss.

Microsoft is accusing the New York Times of pushing “doomsday futurology,” by saying that their technology poses a threat to independent journalism. While this sentiment has a ton of ground to it, Microsoft is unmoved. The company then echoed the accusation that The New York Times used unrealistic prompts to coax ChatGPT into reproducing sections of the New York Times’ work.

Also, Microsoft referred to the entertainment industry’s fight against the VCR back when it was a new technology. The company said that it helped the entertainment industry flourish. Microsoft is saying that AI technology could help the independent journalism industry flourish in much the same way.

However, it’s extremely hard to see how that’s possible with AI creating a fast track to generate articles and bypass actual news outlets.