The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement.

The NYT was the first major American media organization to sue OpenAI—the company that created the popular artificial intelligence platform ChatGPT—and Microsoft—an investor in OpenAI and creator of the AI platform now known as Copilot—over copyright issues related to their works.

Many authors and other groups have also sued technology companies to restrict the automated collection of data or the collection of data using AI services on their online content without payment.

The NYT's complaint, filed in Manhattan federal court, alleges that OpenAI and Microsoft are attempting to "exploit The Times' massive investment in its journalism" by using it to provide information to readers.

The NYT did not provide specific figures for the damages, but estimated the losses to be in the billions of dollars. They also want OpenAI and Microsoft to destroy their chatbot models and document-integrated training suites.

The 172-year-old newspaper said that negotiations aimed at preventing a lawsuit and allowing a "win-win exchange of value" with the defendants had been unsuccessful.

However, OpenAI stated: “We respect the rights of creators and content owners. Our ongoing conversations with the New York Times have been productive and constructive, so we are surprised and disappointed by this development.”

AI companies gather information online to train innovative AI chatbots and have attracted billions of dollars in investment. Investors have valued OpenAI at over $80 billion.

While OpenAI's parent company is a non-profit organization, Microsoft has invested $13 billion in a for-profit subsidiary, with an ownership stake of 49%.

Novelists, including David Baldacci, Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham, and Scott Turow, have also sued OpenAI and Microsoft in Manhattan federal court, claiming that the AI systems may have illegally used tens of thousands of their books.

In July, comedian Sarah Silverman and other authors sued OpenAI and Meta in San Francisco for allegedly "stealing" their work, including Silverman's 2010 book "The Bedwetter." A judge dismissed most of that lawsuit in November.

AI chatbots have further complicated the struggle of news and media organizations to retain their dwindling readership, even though the NYT remains a thriving publication with a stable revenue stream.

The New York Times ended September this year with 9.41 million digital subscribers, up from 8.59 million a year earlier, while print subscribers fell from 740,000 to 670,000.

Long-term subscriptions generate more than two-thirds of the NYT's revenue, while advertising accounts for only about 20% of it.

The New York Times lawsuit cited several instances in which OpenAI and Microsoft chatbots provided users with near-verbatim excerpts of their articles. These included the 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning series on usurious lending in New York City's taxi industry.

The New York Times stated that such violations threaten high-quality journalism by reducing reader demand for the website, potentially cutting advertising revenue and subscriptions.

The NYT also stated that AI chatbots make it harder for readers to distinguish between fact and fiction: "In AI terms, this is called 'illusion'... In simpler terms, it's misinformation."

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