Legal briefs filed by The New York Times in its ongoing copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft have revealed internal documents containing critical statements from the companies' leadership regarding AI data scraping.
LawsuitsMicrosoftOpenAIThe New York Times
Internal Documents Reveal Microsoft and OpenAI Leaders Acknowledged Harms of AI Scraping in NYT Lawsuit
According to the filings, Microsoft’s director of Applied Science, Brent Hecht, reportedly described the process of large language models "hoovering up" work as "the largest theft of labor in human history" in an internal memo from January 2023. Another Microsoft document cited in the brief noted that content creators did not intend for their work to be used in such a manner, nor were they compensated for its use.
The documents also highlight the economic impact on publishers. Internal data from Microsoft revealed that Copilot caused a decline in click-through rates for The New York Times by as much as 93% compared to Bing search. Hecht referred to this situation as a "doom loop" that threatens the economic foundations of essential content suppliers.
At OpenAI, leadership expressed similar concerns regarding the industry's landscape. Nick Turley, head of ChatGPT, described the chatbot as an "existential threat" to publishers because it is increasingly substitutive of their content. Additionally, an OpenAI engineer testified that users are unlikely to click on links even when they are prominently displayed.
While AI companies defend their practices as "fair use," these revelations may complicate their legal defense by demonstrating that leadership was aware of the significant market repercussions and potential harm caused by their data collection methods.
Sources
- Microsoft director: AI scraping 'the largest theft of labor in human history' （Hacker News Frontpage, 2026-09-19）