Published
October 6, 2026
The New York Times’ copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft reached summary judgment in September 2026, when the Times and both companies asked Judge Sidney H. Stein to decide fair use without a trial. The court has not ruled, and readers and ChatGPT users have nothing to claim because the Times sues only for its own articles.
Allegations Only · No Ruling Yet
This article describes contested copyright litigation. The New York Times’ claims are unproven allegations. OpenAI and Microsoft deny infringement and argue their use of the articles is fair use. No court has decided the merits, there is no settlement, and nothing to claim. This page is informational and is not legal advice.
What Is This About?
The New York Times Company sued OpenAI and Microsoft on December 27, 2023, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (The New York Times Company v. Microsoft Corporation, et al., No. 1:23-cv-11195). The Times alleges the companies copied millions of its articles without permission to build ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot and the models behind them, and that those products now compete with the Times for readers by reproducing or summarizing its journalism.OpenAI and Microsoft deny infringement. Their central defense is fair use: they argue that training a model on text is a transformative use, that nobody owns the facts a news story reports, and that ordinary ChatGPT and Copilot answers rarely repeat article text. Since April 2025 the case has been coordinated with other copyright suits against OpenAI in In re: OpenAI, Inc., Copyright Infringement Litigation, MDL No. 3143, before U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein, with Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang handling discovery.
The Times sues as a single corporate plaintiff for its own articles. It is not a class action, and there is no claim form for readers, subscribers or ChatGPT users.
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Status
Summary Judgment Pending
Cross-motions filed September 4, 2026 · briefing runs to November 20, 2026 · no trial date
Core Question
Is AI training on news articles fair use?
The Justice Department has filed a statement siding with OpenAI and Microsoft
Can I Claim?
No — nothing to claim
The Times sues for its own articles; this is not a class action
What Each Side Asked the Judge to Decide
On September 4, 2026, the Times and the other news plaintiffs in the MDL — eight newspapers led by the New York Daily News, the Center for Investigative Reporting, The Intercept and Ziff Davis — filed a joint motion for summary judgment. OpenAI and Microsoft filed their own motions the same day. Summary judgment lets a judge decide claims on the existing record when the key facts are not genuinely disputed, so each side is asking Judge Stein to resolve the case, or large parts of it, without a jury.The publishers ask the court to find OpenAI and Microsoft liable for copying their articles at five stages: acquiring them, often from behind paywalls; training models on them; Microsoft’s use of copies pulled through its Bing search index to “ground” chatbot answers; reproducing articles in Microsoft’s outputs; and the two companies supplying each other with copies as part of their partnership. They also ask the court to reject the fair-use defense at every stage, to find that OpenAI stripped copyright-management information in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and to rule that statutory damages, if awarded, are available separately for each infringed article. According to OpenAI’s brief, as reported by PPC Land, the news plaintiffs together assert more than 10.8 million works.
OpenAI asks for the opposite on the questions it raised: a ruling that pretraining its models on the articles 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 DMCA 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 seeks judgment on every claim against it in the Times’ and Daily News’ complaints. Its brief cites a calculation that matching text of 16 words or more appeared in 59,545 of the 8.2 million Copilot conversation logs produced, about 0.73%.
The Justice Department Sides With OpenAI and Microsoft on Training
Three days earlier, on September 1, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in the MDL. It argues that training large language models on written works is “exceedingly transformative,” that the market-harm factor of the fair-use test “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.” The statement rests the government’s interest on AI policy, national security and competition, and it says its arguments apply to all of the coordinated cases, including the authors’ claims. It addresses only the training stage, not what the models produce for users.On September 28, the Times and the Daily News plaintiffs asked the court to give the statement “no weight at all.” They argue it was filed before the summary-judgment record was unsealed, so it never considered the evidence, and that it conflicts with the U.S. Copyright Office’s May 2025 report on generative AI training. A statement of interest is not binding; Judge Stein decides how much, if any, weight it gets.
The Internal Quotes the Times Says Undercut Fair Use
A public, redacted version of the publishers’ brief was filed on September 17, 2026, and it relies heavily on OpenAI’s and Microsoft’s own documents and testimony. It 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 the same executive wrote that a fair-use defense would arguably “make a complete mockery of the idea of ‘fair use.’” It says Nick Turley, OpenAI’s head of ChatGPT, wrote that publishers face an “existential threat” and that the products are “largely substitutive, period.”The brief also cites a Microsoft document warning that its AI content strategy had started a “doom loop” threatening its “content supply chain,” and Microsoft data the publishers say show 83% to 93% drops in click-through rates to the Times’ and Daily News’ websites from Copilot compared with traditional Bing search. These are the publishers’ readings of selected documents in a contested motion. OpenAI and Microsoft maintain their use is fair use, and their responses to the publishers’ motion are due October 23, 2026. Bloomberg Industry Group, the parent of Bloomberg Law, has moved to intervene to unseal more of the record.
How the Supreme Court’s Cox Ruling Narrowed the Times’ Claims
On March 25, 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: a service provider is liable for a user’s infringement only if it induced the infringement or provided a service tailored to it. The Times had pleaded its secondary-liability claims on the material-contribution theory, and OpenAI moved for judgment on the pleadings.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, and the Times and the Daily News dropped their trademark-dilution claims. On June 25, 2026, the Times also asked to add new inducement and tailored-services theories against Microsoft, alleging Microsoft built a custom supercomputing system designed for large-scale training. In an August 6, 2026 memorandum order, Judge Stein dismissed the dropped claims with prejudice but denied the new Microsoft theories, finding that Cox was not good cause to change course because those theories existed before the ruling and adding them would require reopening discovery. The Times filed a conforming third amended complaint on August 21. Its direct-infringement claims were not affected.
The Sanctions Fight Over ChatGPT Logs
On July 9, 2026, the Times and other news plaintiffs moved for sanctions against OpenAI. They allege OpenAI told the court for years that it could not search its training data and ChatGPT logs for their articles when it could, and that it failed to preserve ChatGPT conversations it was ordered to keep. They ask the court to bar OpenAI from relying on the 20-million-log sample, instruct a jury that evidence was destroyed, and award fees. OpenAI denies the accusations and has argued the publishers are seeking private user conversations as their case weakens. The motion was fully briefed in September 2026 and has not been decided. OCA’s tracker of OpenAI and ChatGPT lawsuits covers the motion in more detail.Key Dates in the Case
- December 27, 2023: The Times sues OpenAI and Microsoft in the Southern District of New York.
- September 13, 2024: The court consolidates the Times’ case with the Daily News newspapers’ suit, with the Times as the lead case.
- March 26 and April 4, 2025: Judge Stein largely denies the motions to dismiss. The direct-infringement claims, including for copying more than three years before the suit, and the contributory claims survive; the Times’ DMCA claim is dismissed without prejudice.
- April 2025: The OpenAI copyright suits are centralized as MDL 3143 before Judge Stein.
- May 13, 2025: Magistrate Judge Wang orders OpenAI to preserve ChatGPT output logs it would otherwise delete. The parties agreed to end that ongoing obligation on October 9, 2025.
- November 7, 2025: Judge Wang orders OpenAI to produce 20 million de-identified ChatGPT logs; Judge Stein affirms on January 5, 2026.
- March 25, 2026: The Supreme Court decides Cox v. Sony.
- July 9, 2026: The news plaintiffs move for sanctions against OpenAI.
- August 6, 2026: Judge Stein dismisses the material-contribution and trademark claims and refuses the Times’ new Microsoft theories.
- September 1, 2026: The Justice Department files its statement of interest.
- September 4, 2026: All sides move for summary judgment.
- September 28, 2026: The publishers ask the court to give the Justice Department’s statement no weight.
How It Connects to the Other AI Copyright Cases
The Times’ case is the lead news case in MDL 3143, which also holds the consolidated author class actions against OpenAI. OpenAI and Microsoft have moved for summary judgment against the authors too, so Judge Stein is weighing fair use for books and news at the same time. Background on the whole MDL is in OCA’s OpenAI copyright MDL write-up.Both sides are leaning on two 2025 rulings from California. The Justice Department quotes Judge William Alsup’s finding in Bartz v. Anthropic that training on books was transformative; that case later ended in a $1.5 billion class settlement over pirated copies, covered on OCA’s Anthropic settlement page. The publishers quote Judge Vince Chhabria’s statement in Kadrey v. Meta that plaintiffs “will often win” when AI products substitute for their works, and that news publishers present “even stronger arguments against fair use.” A separate copyright suit filed in June 2026 by nearly 400 local newspapers led by Richner Communications raises similar claims against the same two companies.
What Happens Next
Under the schedule Judge Stein approved on September 24, 2026, opposition briefs on the summary-judgment motions are due October 23 and replies November 20. OpenAI and Microsoft have also moved to exclude parts of the publishers’ expert testimony and have asked for oral argument; no hearing date has been set. If the judge rules for OpenAI and Microsoft on fair use, much of the case could end without a trial. If he rules for the publishers on liability, the remaining fights would center on damages. A split decision, with some stages fair use and others not, would send the rest toward a trial that has not been scheduled.Questions
Has a court decided whether OpenAI's use of New York Times articles is fair use?
No. As of October 6, 2026, Judge Sidney H. Stein has not ruled. The Times, OpenAI and Microsoft filed competing summary-judgment motions on September 4, 2026, and briefing is scheduled to run to November 20, 2026. No trial date has been set.
Is the New York Times lawsuit a class action that readers or ChatGPT users can join?
No. The New York Times Company sues for its own copyrighted articles as a single corporate plaintiff. There is no class, no settlement and no claim form, and readers or ChatGPT users have nothing to file.
What does the Justice Department's statement of interest mean for the case?
The Justice Department filed a statement on September 1, 2026 arguing that training AI models on copyrighted text is transformative and that broad liability requiring licenses for AI training would be legally incorrect. A statement of interest is the government's view, not a ruling, and the court is not bound by it. The Times and other publishers asked the court to give it no weight.
How much money is the New York Times seeking?
The Times has not asked for a specific amount. Its original complaint said it seeks to hold the companies responsible for “billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages” and asked that models and training sets built with its work be destroyed. In its summary-judgment motion, the Times asked the court to rule that statutory damages, if awarded, are available separately for each infringed article. Under federal copyright law, statutory damages generally range from $750 to $30,000 per work and up to $150,000 per work for willful infringement. Any award would depend on findings the court has not made.
Does the New York Times case affect the author class actions against OpenAI?
They are coordinated in the same multidistrict litigation, MDL 3143, before the same judge, and OpenAI and Microsoft have filed summary-judgment motions against the authors as well. The Justice Department said its fair-use arguments apply to all of the cases, including the authors' claims, so a ruling on fair use in the news cases is likely to inform the author cases.
Sources
• The New York Times Company v. Microsoft Corporation, et al., No. 1:23-cv-11195 (S.D.N.Y.) — docket via CourtListener• In re: OpenAI, Inc., Copyright Infringement Litigation, No. 1:25-md-03143 (S.D.N.Y.) — docket via CourtListener
• Opinion on the motions to dismiss (Apr. 4, 2025) — filing via CourtListener
• Memorandum order on contributory-infringement claims after Cox v. Sony (Aug. 6, 2026) — Justia
• 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
• Microsoft’s memorandum in support of summary judgment in the news cases (refiled Sept. 17, 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
• 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
• U.S. Copyright Office — copyright and artificial intelligence reports
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Status
Cross-motions for summary judgment pending
Case Title
The New York Times Company v. Microsoft Corporation, et al.
Case Number
1:23-cv-11195 (part of MDL No. 3143, 1:25-md-03143)
Court
U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York
Judge
Hon. Sidney H. Stein
Date Filed
December 27, 2023
Third amended complaint filed August 21, 2026
Court Docket
NYT v. Microsoft Docket — CourtListener
