Published
July 23, 2026
Updated
October 6, 2026
The New York Times, other news publishers and authors allege OpenAI and Microsoft copied their work without permission to train ChatGPT. In September 2026 both sides asked Judge Sidney H. Stein to decide the core fair-use question without a trial, and the Justice Department filed a brief backing the AI companies. OpenAI and Microsoft deny infringement; the court has not ruled.
Allegations Only · Contested Litigation
This article describes ongoing copyright litigation. The claims that OpenAI infringed copyrights are unproven allegations. OpenAI denies infringement and asserts that its use of the works is protected by the fair-use doctrine. No court has decided the merits, and nothing here is legal advice.
What Is This About?
As generative AI tools took off, authors, news organizations, and other copyright owners began suing OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, alleging that the company copied huge amounts of their protected writing — books, articles, and other works — to train its AI models without permission or payment. Some suits also name Microsoft, OpenAI's largest investor and partner. The plaintiffs allege that the models were built on their work and can, at times, reproduce or closely paraphrase it. OpenAI denies infringement and argues that training on publicly available material is protected by the fair-use doctrine — one of the central legal questions of the AI era.In 2025 the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation centralized the various OpenAI copyright cases into MDL No. 3143, In re: OpenAI, Inc., Copyright Infringement Litigation (case 1:25-md-03143), before U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein in the Southern District of New York. High-profile plaintiffs, including news publishers such as The New York Times and groups of authors, are among those whose claims are coordinated there.
Status
Active · Summary Judgment
Cross-motions filed September 4, 2026; briefing runs into late November; no ruling, no trial date
Litigation
MDL 3143 · S.D.N.Y.
Judge Sidney H. Stein · consolidated 2025
Core Question
Copyright vs. Fair Use
Was training ChatGPT on the works infringement or fair use?
Can I Claim?
Not a Consumer Claim
Brought by copyright owners — no public claim form
Who Is Suing, and What They Want
The plaintiffs fall into a few groups: news publishers whose articles were allegedly used in training and are sometimes reproduced in outputs; individual authors and author organizations bringing class claims; and other rightsholders. Within the MDL, the court ordered the author plaintiffs to file a single consolidated class action complaint so the overlapping author claims move together. Broadly, the plaintiffs seek money damages for the alleged unauthorized copying and court orders limiting how their works can be used going forward. Because the plaintiffs are copyright owners rather than consumers, there is no consumer claim form and no general "sign-up."Free settlement alerts
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Summary Judgment: What Each Side Is Asking For
On September 4, 2026, the news publishers, OpenAI and Microsoft each filed motions for summary judgment — a request that the judge decide some or all of the claims on the existing record, without a trial. The motions cover the news cases in the MDL, led by The New York Times Company v. Microsoft Corporation (No. 1:23-cv-11195) and joined by the Daily News papers, the Center for Investigative Reporting, The Intercept and Ziff Davis. According to OpenAI's brief, as reported by PPC Land, the news plaintiffs together have identified more than 10.8 million works they say were infringed.OpenAI asks the court to rule that using the articles to pretrain its models is fair use, that its Browse feature's use of articles to pull factual information is fair use or was impliedly licensed, and that the publishers' Digital Millennium Copyright Act claims fail. Its brief says that when its expert searched a sample of 20 million ChatGPT conversation logs, he found 24 instances of verbatim reproduction of the publishers' works. Microsoft filed its own motion seeking judgment on all of the claims against it in the Times' and Daily News' complaints.
The publishers ask for the opposite. Their motion seeks a ruling that OpenAI and Microsoft are liable for copying at five stages: acquiring the articles, training models on them, "grounding" Microsoft's chatbot responses on copies pulled through the Bing index, reproducing articles in Microsoft's outputs, and supplying copies to each other as part of their commercial partnership. They also ask the court to reject the fair-use defense for every stage, to find that OpenAI removed copyright-management information in violation of the DMCA, and to hold that statutory damages, if awarded, are available separately for each infringed article.
The Justice Department Backs the AI Companies on Fair Use
On September 1, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in MDL 3143. The statement argues that training large language models on written works is "exceedingly transformative," that the market-harm factor "heavily favors fair use," and that it would be "problematic—and legally incorrect—to impose broad copyright liability that would generally render training of AI models impermissible without licensing." It grounds the government's interest in AI policy, national security and competition, and it addresses only the training stage, not what the models produce in response to users.On September 28, the news plaintiffs answered, asking the court to give the statement "no weight at all." They argue the Justice Department filed it days before the summary-judgment motions and before large parts of those briefs were unsealed, so it never considered the factual record, and that its analysis conflicts with the U.S. Copyright Office's May 2025 report on generative AI training. A statement of interest is not binding on the court.
Unsealed Executive Quotes in the Publishers' Brief
A public, redacted version of the publishers' summary-judgment brief was filed on September 17, 2026, and it leans heavily on the defendants' own internal documents and testimony. The brief quotes a Microsoft applied-science director predicting that "millions of people around the world will soon consider" large models "hoovering up" their work to be "an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions," and says that a fair-use win would, as the same executive put it, arguably "make a complete mockery of the idea of 'fair use.'" Citing its statement of facts, the brief also calls the copying perhaps the "largest theft of labor in human history."The brief says Nick Turley, OpenAI's head of ChatGPT, wrote that publishers face an "existential threat" from AI products, which he described as "largely substitutive, period." It also cites a Microsoft document warning of a "doom loop" for its "content supply chain," and Microsoft data that the publishers say show 83% to 93% drops in click-through rates to the Times' and Daily News' sites from Microsoft's Copilot compared with traditional Bing search. These are the publishers' characterizations of selected documents in a contested motion. OpenAI and Microsoft maintain that their use of the articles is fair use, and their written responses to the publishers' motion are not yet due.
Bloomberg Industry Group, the parent of Bloomberg Law, has separately moved to intervene for the limited purpose of unsealing more of the summary-judgment record. The court directed it to refile that motion on the MDL docket, with briefing set through October 30, 2026.
How the Supreme Court's Cox Ruling Narrowed the News Claims
In March 2026, the Supreme Court held in Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment that "material contribution" is not a valid theory of contributory copyright liability. OpenAI then moved to dismiss the news publishers' contributory-infringement claims, which rested on that theory. In response, the Times, the Daily News and the Center for Investigative Reporting agreed to drop, with prejudice, their "material contribution" claims against OpenAI and Microsoft based on infringement by ChatGPT and Copilot users. The Times and the Daily News also dropped their trademark-dilution claims.In an August 6, 2026 memorandum order, Judge Stein dismissed those claims with prejudice and denied the Times' and Daily News' requests to add new contributory theories against Microsoft — that it induced OpenAI's infringement or supplied services tailored to it. The judge found that Cox did not create good cause for the change, because those theories existed before the ruling and adding them now would require reopening discovery. The Times filed a conforming third amended complaint on August 21. The publishers' core direct-infringement claims were not affected.
How the Case Got Here
In late 2025, Judge Stein denied OpenAI's motion to dismiss several of the infringement theories tied to ChatGPT's outputs. In early 2026, the court affirmed an order requiring OpenAI to produce a sample of 20 million anonymized ChatGPT conversation logs, rejecting OpenAI's narrower proposal. In July 2026, the news publishers moved for sanctions, alleging OpenAI misled the court about its ability to search its training data and logs and failed to preserve ChatGPT conversations. OpenAI denies those accusations; the motion was fully briefed in September and has not been decided. For the sanctions fight and the other OpenAI cases, see OCA's tracker of OpenAI and ChatGPT lawsuits.What Happens Next
On September 24, 2026, the court approved a schedule under which opposition briefs are due October 23 and replies November 20, 2026. The defendants have also moved to exclude some of the publishers' expert testimony and have asked for oral argument; no hearing date has been set. Judge Stein has not ruled on any of the summary-judgment motions, and no trial date has been set. Whatever he decides on fair use is likely to shape the author class claims in the same MDL and the wider fight over AI training. For how this case sits among the country's other major litigations, see our MDL tracker.Frequently Asked Questions
What does the OpenAI copyright lawsuit allege?
Authors, news organizations, and other rightsholders allege that OpenAI (and, in some cases, Microsoft) copied their copyrighted works without permission to train ChatGPT and related AI models, and that the models can reproduce or closely paraphrase protected material. OpenAI denies infringement and argues its use of the works is protected as fair use. The claims have not been decided.
Is the New York Times part of this case?
The New York Times is among the high-profile plaintiffs whose copyright cases against OpenAI were centralized. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated the various OpenAI copyright suits — from news publishers and from authors — into MDL 3143 before Judge Sidney H. Stein in the Southern District of New York for coordinated pretrial proceedings.
Can consumers join or claim anything in this case?
No. This is copyright litigation brought by rightsholders — authors, publishers, and similar copyright owners — not a consumer class action, and there is no consumer claim form. A separate author class complaint has been filed within the MDL, but eligibility there is limited to copyright owners whose works are at issue, not the general public.
What is the status of the New York Times case against OpenAI?
The news cases are at summary judgment. On September 4, 2026, the news publishers, OpenAI and Microsoft filed competing motions asking Judge Sidney H. Stein to decide the infringement and fair-use questions without a trial. Under the court's schedule, briefing runs to November 20, 2026. The judge has not ruled, and no trial date has been set.
Where does the U.S. government stand on AI training and fair use?
On September 1, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in MDL 3143 arguing that training AI models on copyrighted text is transformative and that imposing broad liability that would generally require licenses for AI training would be legally incorrect. The news publishers responded on September 28 that the court should give the statement no weight, because it was filed before the factual record was unsealed. The statement does not bind the court.
Sources
• U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation — MDL 3143 statistics and docket, jpml.uscourts.gov• U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York — In re: OpenAI, Inc., Copyright Infringement Litigation, MDL 3143 (1:25-md-03143), nysd.uscourts.gov
• U.S. Copyright Office — copyright and artificial intelligence resources, copyright.gov/ai
• In re: OpenAI, Inc., Copyright Infringement Litigation, No. 1:25-md-03143 (S.D.N.Y.) — docket via CourtListener
• The New York Times Company v. Microsoft Corporation, et al., No. 1:23-cv-11195 (S.D.N.Y.) — docket via CourtListener
• Statement of Interest of the United States (Sept. 1, 2026) — filing via CourtListener
• OpenAI's memorandum in support of summary judgment on the news plaintiffs' claims (Sept. 4, 2026) — filing via CourtListener
• News plaintiffs' public, redacted summary-judgment memorandum (Sept. 17, 2026) — filing via CourtListener
• News plaintiffs' response to the Statement of Interest of the United States (Sept. 28, 2026) — filing via CourtListener
• Memorandum order on contributory-infringement claims after Cox v. Sony (Aug. 6, 2026) — Justia
• Reuters — reporting on the unredacted executive quotes
• Bloomberg Law — reporting on the publishers' response to the DOJ statement
• PPC Land — reporting on the September 4 summary-judgment motions
For more class actions keep scrolling below.
Status
Active · cross-motions for summary judgment pending
Case Title
In re: OpenAI, Inc., Copyright Infringement Litigation
MDL Number
MDL No. 3143 (1:25-md-03143)
Court
U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York
Judge
Hon. Sidney H. Stein
Consolidated
2025
Lead News Case
The New York Times Co. v. Microsoft Corp., No. 1:23-cv-11195
Official Docket
JPML — Pending MDLs
