by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
SDNY COURTHOUSE, Jan 15 – Fiction writers and the Authors Guild, as well as the New York Times, have sued OpenAI and Microsoft. On November 29, 2024 the intial pre-trial conference was held before U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Sidney H. Stein. Inner City Press was there, thread.
Jump cut to January 14, 2025, oral arguments, from the thread:
Media lawyer: Citing WireCutter may even cause more harm, if it falsely claims WireCutter recommendation, if the product gets recalled. We recommend Black Friday Sales - it is time sensitive. What is the relevant news cycle... We believe we can prove all elements
Judge Stein: Thanks- I have a lot to think about, you'll get an opinion in due course.
On October 8 Inner City Press live tweeted again, this time the argument on which versions of ChatGPT are in the case, thread.
Jump cut against to November 21, 2025 when OpenAI wrote in complaining about the NYT's "refus[al] to confirm it will adequately educate its designee on this Topic by asking specific reporters who have been reporting on OpenAI about their knowledge."
On January 22, Inner City Press again live tweeted, here
OpenAI lawyer: We can only provide them that in the aggregate, as we did in March 2025 - it's the information that says On this date, this number of user-initiated deletions occurred. We've put it together in a raw response Plaintiffs' lawyer: Can we get it by next Wednesday January 21? OpenAI lawyer: We'll endeavor... Magistrate Judge Wang: It's been said that the Court would create a broad surveillance state by keeping these logs - that's unfounded, right? Both sides: Yes.
Plaintiffs' lawyer: They are even redacting the city the user is in. In a case involving the NYT, NY Daily News, Orlando Sentinel, San Jose Mercury News, this is problematic. We need to start over, redact only Social Security numbers. We have a protective order
Judge: Solve it by Jan 22.
The overall case is now In re OpenAI Copyright Infringement Litigation, 1:25-md-3143 (Stein / Wang), incorporating NYT v. Microsoft, et al., 1:23-cv-11196 (Stein / Wang)
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