The New York Times isn’t just suing OpenAI. It’s trying to rewrite the rules for how the entire AI industry interacts with copyrighted content, and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien wants everyone to understand what’s at stake.
Levien has made clear in recent interviews that the lawsuit, originally filed in December 2023, is about more than one newspaper’s grievances. It’s a test case for whether AI companies can vacuum up millions of articles to train their models without paying the people who wrote them.
A $2.25 billion opening bid
The Times filed its complaint on December 27, 2023, in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The targets: OpenAI and Microsoft, accused of using millions of NYT articles to train large language models, including those powering ChatGPT, without authorization or compensation.
Initial damage estimates land at a minimum of $2.25 billion. Some legal observers have speculated the figure could climb into the hundreds of billions when you factor in lost revenue and broader market impact.
