New York Times says OpenAI hid evidence in ChatGPT copyright trial

In other words, they claim OpenAI made it needlessly difficult to obtain information that the company had already collected.

“If OpenAI genuinely believed that copying our clients’ journalism was fair and legal, it wouldn’t have hid the truth about having done it,”  Ian B. Crosby, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said in a statement.

Now, the NYT and The Daily News are asking the judge to discipline OpenAI for allegedly withholding evidence and messing with the discovery process. They are asking the court to prevent OpenAI from using the 20 million chat log sample as evidence, claiming it is unreliable; to accept as fact that ChatGPT logs would have shown major regurgitation and grounding of the plaintiffs’ content; to prevent OpenAI from arguing that its provided chat logs don’t demonstrate substantial regurgitation; and to make OpenAI pay legal fees for having to chase down this evidence. 

In a statement, OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri denied the allegations, accusing the Times of trying to access private user conversations as its case weakens.

“As the Times’ case weakens and they’ve been forced to drop claims against us, they’re persisting with their efforts to invade the privacy of people who have nothing to do with this case, including by making these blatantly false allegations,” Pusateri said. “We’ll continue defending our users’ privacy and the long-established principles of fair use.”