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Fighting the New York Times' invasion of user privacy

(openai.com)
195 points meetpateltech | 1 comments | 12 Nov 25 14:08 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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rpdillon ◴[12 Nov 25 14:48 UTC] No.45900911[source]▶
I wouldn't want to make it out like I think OpenAI is the good guy here. I don't.

But conversations people thought they were having with OpenAI in private are now going to be scoured by the New York Times' lawyers. I'm aware of the third party doctrine and that if you put something online it can never be actually private. But I think this also runs counter to people's expectations when they're using the product.

In copyright cases, typically you need to show some kind of harm. This case is unusual because the New York Times can't point to any harm, so they have to trawl through private conversations OpenAI's customers have had with their service to see if they can find any.

It's quite literally a fishing expedition.

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Noaidi ◴[12 Nov 25 16:06 UTC] No.45901852[source]▶
To show harm they need the proof, this is the point of the lawsuit. They have sufficient evidence that OpenAI was scraping the web and the NY Times.

When Altman says "They claim they might find examples of you using ChatGPT to try to get around their paywall." he is blatantly misrepresenting the case.

https://smithhopen.com/2025/07/17/nyt-v-openai-microsoft-ai-...

"The lawsuit focuses on using copyrighted material for AI training. The NYT says OpenAI and Microsoft copied vast amounts of its content. They did this to build generative AI tools. These tools can output near-exact copies of NYT articles. Therefore, the NYT argues this breaks copyright laws. It also hurts journalism by skipping paywalls and cutting traffic to original sites. The complaint shows examples where ChatGPT mimics NYT stories closely. This could lead to money loss and harm from AI errors, called hallucinations."

This has nothing to do with the users, it has everything to do with OpenAI profiting off of pirated copyrighted material.

Also, Altmans is getting scared because the NY Times proved to the judge that CahtGPT copied many articles:

"2025 brings big steps in the case. On March 26, 2025, Judge Sidney Stein rejected most of OpenAI’s dismissal motion. This lets the NYT’s main copyright claims go ahead. The judge pointed to “many” examples of ChatGPT copying NYT articles. He found them enough to continue. This ruling dropped some side claims, like unfair competition. But it kept direct and contributory infringement, plus DMCA breaches."

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1. rpdillon ◴[12 Nov 25 17:00 UTC] No.45902576[source]▶
Training has sometimes been held to be fair use under certain circumstances, but in determining fair use, one of the four factors that is considered is how it affects the market for the work being infringed. I would expect that determining to what degree it's regurgitating the New York Times' content is part of that analysis.