Topic, which is also representing The Intercept in a similar DMCA case against OpenAI, as well as the nonprofit newsroom Center for Investigative Reporting in a copyright infringement case against OpenAI and Microsoft, says it is ” “I’m sure these types of DMCA complaints are allowed.” under the Constitution.”
Not all experts agree. “These claims make no sense and should be dismissed, so I am not surprised by this ruling,” said Matthew Sag, a professor of law and artificial intelligence at Emory University. He believes the publishers failed to prove that OpenAI violated the law in part because they didn’t offer concrete examples that ChatGPT distributed copies of their work after stripping CMI.
Ann G. Fort, an intellectual property attorney and partner at Eversheds Sutherland, suspects that media outlets will need to provide specific examples of how ChatGPT produces infringing responses. “They will have to show results,” he says.
DMCA claims have been especially controversial in several AI lawsuits. In The Intercept case, OpenAI also filed a motion to dismiss standing, but the court procedure was slightly different and the publisher was given permission to file an amended complaint. He did so last summer, bolstering his case by adding 600 pages of evidence, including examples of how OpenAI models could be prompted to produce snippets of text that, in at least one case, were almost identical to an Intercept article. the court is expected will govern at the end of this month.
Whether or not Raw Story and Alternet are allowed to file an amended complaint, this week’s dismissal does not appear to preclude other legal arguments; the judge clearly stated that she considered the specific DMCA claims rather than the broader concept of infringement to be missing. “Let’s be clear about what’s really at stake here. “The alleged harm for which Plaintiffs actually seek relief is not the exclusion of CMI from Defendant’s training suites, but rather Defendant’s use of Plaintiff’s articles to develop ChatGPT without compensation to Plaintiff,” he writes. Judge McMahon. “It remains to be seen if there is another statute or legal theory that elevates this type of harm. But that question is not raised before the court today.”
However, some experts believe this ruling could have far-reaching consequences. “This lack of position theory is actually a potential earthquake that goes far beyond AI,” says James Grimmelmann, a professor of digital and Internet law at Cornell University. “It has the potential to significantly restrict the types of intellectual property cases that federal courts can hear.” He suspects that the logic applied in this case could be expanded to argue that publishers have no standing “to sue for model formation, not even for copyright infringement.”