OpenAI and the U.S. Government Warn That the New York Times Lawsuit Threatens AI Innovation
Fair Use Benefits Everyone
OpenAI argues that fair use is essential for AI development and that the New York Times lawsuit seeks to overturn decades of legal precedent. The company cites support from the U.S. Government, the American Library Association, the Authors Alliance, and independent creators, who contend that training AI on copyrighted works is transformative and does not harm existing markets. They warn that restricting fair use would stifle scientific progress and economic mobility.
The New York Times’ lawsuit, meanwhile, asks everyone to ignore a half century of legal history and progress, and toss aside the longstanding principle of fair use in their own narrow pursuit of an undeserved payday.
- jawns
This reminds me of a billboard I saw about 15 years ago when the state of Delaware was considering changing its laws to permit new casinos in addition to the three that had been grandfathered in when the restrictions went into place.
Delaware Park, one of those three casinos, put up a billboard opposing the bill, and it said, "No more casinos! THREE IS ENOUGH!"
It just goes to show that corporations will take any position -- even a casino taking an anti-casino position -- as long as it's self-serving.
- simonw
From that article:
> The New York Times’ lawsuit, meanwhile, asks everyone to ignore a half century of legal history and progress, and toss aside the longstanding principle of fair use in their own narrow pursuit of an undeserved payday.
The New York Times lawsuit isn't purely about training on content - it's about memorization. They included examples of OpenAI's models being able to reproduce NYT articles entirely from the weights.
There's also stuff about RAG in there - about OpenAI (and Microsoft) features that run web searches and then summarize the results. I've not been following developments closely, I'd be interested to know how that part of the lawsuit is shaking out so far.
- zugi
I agree on this point!
And also, training an open weights AI on the outputs of an AI trained using "fair use", is itself "fair use" that benefits everyone.
- erikschoster
OK. Obviously the use-case has changed.
Consider a random example of fair use: print an excerpt of this three panel comic you would like to discuss.
Does building a business around the automation of fair use constitute fair use? I would say no.
- PLenz
Translation from corporate speak: when we steal from you that's good; when you steal from us that's bad