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Last month, the New York Times sued OpenAI, alleging the artificial intelligence company used copyrighted NYT articles for the purpose of training its bots.

In the lawsuit, the Times clearly states it never gave permission for OpenAI to use its content in this manner. As a result of these allegations, the New York Times contends that OpenAI owes billions in damages and cannot continue "free-riding" via the illegal use of copyrighted material.

Weeks after the lawsuit, OpenAI is now claiming without access to copyrighted content, it won't be able to create or train generative bots.

Not a good sign for generative AI

Copyright protections of various materials emerge for the express purposes of declaring ownership and allowing the creator to earn income from authorized outside users of their material. Copyrighted content is not allowed to be used without the express permission of its owner.

Unfortunately for OpenAI, the company relies upon broad data found online, much of which remains copyrighted. In order for OpenAI to legally train its bots with this content, it will first need to get permission from the original creators.

Authorization to this extent appears unlikely. Many corporations don't care for the idea of their own material being used by AI companies that are inherently competing with them in the marketplace.

At this time, it's safe to predict that the New York Times won't be the only content owner denying AI companies the right to use its material to instruct generative bots.

In the meantime, OpenAI concedes copyright protections extend across "virtually every sort of human expression." It also maintains that only having permission to access instructional data for bots from "public domain books and drawings" would sabotage its efforts to meet the needs of the public.

Following the lawsuit from the Times, OpenAI asserts using the Times' material for bot training doesn't infringe upon copyright protections. Needless to say, the New York Times has a very different point of view.

More lawsuits coming down the pipeline

As it turns out, OpenAI is far from the only company starring down a lawsuit alleging illegal use of copyrighted content.

Stability AI faces a lawsuit over the use of copyrighted material from Getty Images. This suit exists both here in the United States and across the pond in Britain.

Likewise, Universal Music and additional music companies brought forward legal action against AI startup Anthropic for using copyrighted songs to instruct the bot known as Claude.