How The New York Times lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft unfolded
The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in December 2023, alleging they copied millions of its articles without permission to build ChatGPT and other AI products. The defendants say training on public material is fair use. The case survived motions to dismiss in large part and is now part of a multidistrict litigation in Manhattan with other news and authors' suits, where summary judgment motions on fair use are being briefed.
27 December 2023 to today · 21 dated events · 24 sources
Where it stands now · as of 1 November 2026
Pending in the Southern District of New York before Judge Stein in MDL No. 3143. Both sides have moved for summary judgment on fair use and other issues, with the news plaintiffs' opposition papers reported in October 2026, and no ruling or trial date had been reported as of 1 November 2026.
Overview · 27 Dec 2023 to Oct 2026 · click a dot to jump
2023
27 Dec 2023
Turning point
Filing
The Times sues OpenAI and Microsoft
The New York Times Company sued Microsoft and OpenAI in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging the companies used millions of its copyrighted articles to train ChatGPT and other AI products without permission. Bloomberg reported that the complaint alleged billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages without naming a figure. OpenAI said it was surprised and disappointed and Microsoft declined to comment.
“the law requires that they first obtain our permission”New York Times spokesperson, as reported by Bloomberg, Bloomberg, via Bloomberg Law
The case, assigned to Judge Sidney H. Stein with Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang, was accepted as related to the authors' class action No. 1:23-cv-08292 on 2 January 2024, according to the docket.
OpenAI said training AI models on publicly available internet material is fair use, called regurgitation of content a rare bug, and said its partnership talks with the Times had been progressing until 19 December.
“We regard The New York Times' lawsuit to be without merit.”OpenAI, OpenAI
OpenAI asked the court to dismiss parts of the lawsuit and said the Times had paid someone to hack OpenAI's products to generate misleading evidence, Reuters reported. A lawyer for the Times said OpenAI was mischaracterising its use of OpenAI's products to look for evidence of copying.
“bizarrely mischaracterizes as 'hacking'”Ian Crosby, lawyer for The New York Times, as reported by Reuters, Reuters, via Insurance Journal
Eight newspapers owned by Alden Global Capital, including the New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune, sued OpenAI and Microsoft in New York federal court, alleging the companies used millions of their articles without permission or payment, the Associated Press reported.
Judge Stein ruled on the defendants' motions to dismiss in the newspaper cases, dismissing some claims but allowing the bulk of the case to proceed, with reasons to follow, the Associated Press reported. OpenAI welcomed the dismissal of many claims.
“all of our copyright claims will continue against”Ian Crosby, lawyer for The New York Times, as reported by the AP, Associated Press, via CBS News
The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transferred four authors' cases from California to the Southern District of New York and centralized them with eight cases already there, including the Times, Daily News and Center for Investigative Reporting suits, before Judge Stein as MDL No. 3143. The news plaintiffs had opposed centralization.
“Centralization will eliminate duplicative discovery”Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (transfer order), Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation
Stein's opinion dismissed with prejudice the Times' and Daily News' state law unfair competition by misappropriation claims as preempted. It dismissed without prejudice the Times' claim that OpenAI removed copyright management information, the same claim against Microsoft in all three news cases, and the distribution claims under DMCA section 1202(b)(3). It denied OpenAI's statute of limitations challenge and let the direct and contributory copyright infringement claims proceed.
Magistrate Judge Wang ordered OpenAI to preserve and segregate output log data that would otherwise be deleted, including data deleted at users' request or under privacy laws, going forward until further order.
“OpenAI is NOW DIRECTED to preserve and segregate all output log data that would otherwise be deleted”Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang, order ECF No. 551, US District Court, S.D.N.Y., copy hosted by Duane Morris
Wang denied without prejudice OpenAI's request to reconsider or modify the preservation order, according to the law firm Duane Morris's summary of the orders.
OpenAI said that at a 27 May hearing the magistrate judge clarified that ChatGPT Enterprise was excluded from preservation. It said the order covered ChatGPT Free, Plus, Pro and Team users and API users without zero data retention, and that it had appealed to the district judge.
Under a stipulation and order entered on 9 October 2025, OpenAI's obligation to preserve and segregate output logs going forward ended as of 26 September 2025. OpenAI must keep logs already segregated, except those of users in the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the UK, and preserve logs from accounts tied to the news plaintiffs' domains.
Magistrate Judge Wang ordered OpenAI to produce 20 million de-identified ChatGPT user logs to the news plaintiffs, Bloomberg Law reported. In a ruling reported on 3 December 2025 she declined to reconsider, saying OpenAI had raised no new facts, according to Reuters and Bloomberg Law.
In the Ziff Davis case, part of the same MDL, Stein dismissed the unjust enrichment and robots.txt circumvention claims and part of a trademark dilution claim, kept the other challenged claims, and stayed claims about newer models including GPT-5 that are not already part of the MDL.
Stein rejected OpenAI's objection to Wang's order requiring production of the 20 million log sample, including its request to search the sample and produce only conversations involving the plaintiffs' works, Bloomberg Law reported.
The Justice Department filed a statement of interest arguing that AI training transforms written works in ways copyright law permits and that AI development is critical to national security, The New York Times and Bloomberg Law reported. A Times spokesperson said the department was siding with AI companies at the expense of American creators.
“AI dominance is critical to promote national security, prosperity, and economic mobility for all Americans.”Stanley Woodward Jr., associate attorney general, as reported by The New York Times, The New York Times, via GV Wire
OpenAI asked the court for summary judgment against the news plaintiffs, arguing that pretraining on their works and its Browse feature are fair use and that their DMCA section 1202(b)(1) claims fail as a matter of law. The brief said more than 95 percent of the Times' works at issue predate OpenAI's founding in 2015.
In the same MDL, the authors' class plaintiffs moved for partial summary judgment, asking the court to rule that OpenAI's downloading of books from pirated sources and its training on their works is not fair use and that Microsoft is vicariously liable. Their brief is dated 4 September 2026 and the public copy was docketed on 17 September.
Court documents unsealed on 17 September included the Times' allegation that OpenAI committed theft of unprecedented proportions, AFP reported. The New York Daily News reported that the news plaintiffs had cross-moved for summary judgment asking the court to rule that the defendants' copying was not fair use. TRT World, citing AFP, reported that Microsoft said statements by one of its employees quoted by the Times reflected that employee's own view.
Publishers ask the court to disregard the DOJ view
The Times, the Daily News and other publishers asked the court to give the Justice Department's statement no weight, arguing national security policy is separate from the copyright questions, Bloomberg Law reported.
The news plaintiffs, including the Times, filed papers opposing OpenAI's and Microsoft's summary judgment motions, arguing the defendants misread the first fair use factor, MLex reported on 23 October. MLex did not give the filing date.
Last updated 1 November 2026. Spotted an error? See corrections. Every event links to the record it comes from. Allegations are attributed to whoever made them.
