wake up babe, the new york times just sued openAI

the quandaries and implications of generative AI

Every January for the past few years, I have opened up my class syllabus for Intellectual Property in the Digital Age to update it. For better or for worse, the tremendous (and fast!) rise of ChatGPT, and generative AI (GenAI) more generally, has created way more questions of ethics than answers of law.

Under those circumstances, it was only a matter of time before the lawsuits against GenAI companies. Artists first accused GenAI image generators of infringing their works in January of last year. Then authors, including John Grisham and Jodi Picoult, and the Authors Guild sued OpenAI in September. And in the usually sleepy lull between Christmas and New Year’s, the New York Times filed their complaint against Microsoft and OpenAI.

From a tactical standpoint, the timing of the complaint is peak lawful evil—respondents to lawsuits have a set number of days to respond to complaints, so filing on December 27 ensures that the suit ruined some poor Big Law associates’ holidays. (Including at …