by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
SDNY COURTHOUSE, Jan 14 – Fiction writers and the Authors Guild have sued OpenAI and on November 29 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:
NYT's lawyer: We are looking back into when OpenAI's plans to be for-profit went.
Daily News' lawyer: In OpenAI's brief, their only argument on statute of limitations is plaintiffs should have discovered this prior to April 2021. They don't say how the Daily News should have been aware.
The fair use issue is for later in the case.
Daily News lawyer: Consider the CoPilot, when asked "find me material for my blog" delivers up content from the Daily News without naming the source, and says, Go ahead and use it.
Judge Stein: You're arguing this allows massive wrongdoing? A: Absolutely
Media lawyer: Look at these articles that got copied: lunar eclipse story, triple homicide, Yankee schedule. It's even more free-riding when you consider local school's basketball scores. OpenAI copies that, and WireCutter. This is harm
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.
One case is Authors Guild et al v. OpenAI Inc. et al., 23-cv-8292 (Stein)
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