NYT court filing: ChatGPT's head wrote that publishers face an “existential threat” from AI, and a Microsoft director called AI training “an astonishing theft”

Lawyers say AI co-founder Greg Brockman was ‘motivated by the gazillions’ he hoped to gain from models trained on copyrighted content

Financial Times 2026-09-18

Context & Ripple Effects

The New York Times’ 2023 copyright suit put OpenAI and Microsoft at the center of a test over whether news reporting can be used as model-training input. In 2025, the companies’ lawyers sought dismissal while defending the scraping of news stories; the newly unredacted filing gives the Times material to press against that position in the companies’ earlier defense of news scraping.

The dispute has widened from a single publisher’s claim into a contest over who controls the commercial use of reporting. The filing’s importance is evidentiary: the Times can point to internal language that recognized harm to publishers while alleging that the companies pursued models trained on copyrighted work.

First-order effects

The Times gains internal statements to support its argument that OpenAI and Microsoft understood the potential harm to publishers, complicating the companies’ litigation defense.
Microsoft and OpenAI must address the quoted statements in court alongside their position that training on news stories should not trigger copyright liability.

Second-order effects

Other news publishers pursuing or weighing copyright claims gain a prominent factual record to cite when challenging AI companies’ characterizations of training practices.
The disclosures increase pressure on AI developers and publishers to frame training access as a licensed commercial relationship rather than an uncompensated input dispute.

Third-order effects

If courts treat internal recognition of publisher harm as relevant, copyright litigation may become a stronger control point for the use of news archives in AI training.
The case reinforces a broader split between AI builders seeking scalable data access and publishers seeking contractual or legal leverage over content commercialization.

The trend: Copyright is becoming a control plane for AI training data, with publisher lawsuits testing whether high-value reporting can be used without negotiated terms.

Discussion

@moreperfectus @moreperfectus on x
Here is a Microsoft executive appearing to admit that AI training is massive theft.
@matthewstoller Matt Stoller on x
OpenAI's President Greg Brockman, when told his company had hacked the NYT paywall to scrape the site, responded with “ah nice.” That's a straightforward criminal violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. OpenAI executives in jail.
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
Matt, interesting point. I've been trying to seek a comment from @sama @gdb on this but they seem quiet today. @satyanadella, to his credit, at least seems to understand subscription terms as a starting point. Although MSFT no friend to news media and journalism in this either.
@buccocapital @buccocapital on x
Always remember: the “e” in “email” stands for evidence
@julianandreone Julian Andreone on x
OpenAI President saying “ah nice” after learning that their model had been programmed with “a hack to get around nytimes paywall.
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
woah. Court just unsealed Summary Judgment motions in New York Times v OpenAI / Microsoft. Easy to see why the AI companies had so many redactions (pink). Their own people wrote the lede for NYT, the “largest theft of labor in human history”... “more and more substitutive...” /1
@timnitgebru @timnitgebru on x
Remember folks, take notes here: ✅ When your company hacking another helps with marketing, its “Rogue models gone wild hacking other companies.
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
Maybe unlike OpenAI, Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella seems to understand the law and why OpenAI would be breaking it. Maybe he gets ethics, too. Interestingly they still swapped data sets as “horse trading” as this damaging but descriptive term was redacted everywhere. /5
@garymarcus Gary Marcus on x
The other problem with the pretense that liability law might solve our problems is that our existing federal government has shown little interest in prosecuting or even investigating potential violations of existing laws. If the AI companies thought that potential violations of t…
@mattzeitlin Matthew Zeitlin on x
biggest difference between tech and finance is what they will write in emails and instant messages
@timnitgebru @timnitgebru on x
I had to be on TV responding to their “OMG we have six NEW incidents of CONCERNING models gone ROGUE cause they're SO POWERFUL
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
two different paragraphs, two different sections but encourage you to click and read the unsealed (pink) of both of them together. And stop and think about the impact and harm to news media and civil society. /8
@ednewtonrex Ed Newton-Rex on x
This might be the biggest admission in any of the 100+ AI copyright lawsuits. OpenAI & Microsoft execs admit the case is about “the largest theft of labor in human history”, that publishers face an “existential threat” from their products, and that those products
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
background since this is getting pickup a lot of the arguments in this case will be about “substitution” and whether the works from OAI/MSFT are “transformative”, which will be a very important distinction compared to focusing on the data consumption https://www.nytimes.com/...
@tab_delete Theo Baker on x
Everyone in news and tech should read this.
@ryangrim Ryan Grim on x
They drove @aaronsw to death for much less than this and he had legal access to the material and was downloading it for a non-commercial use. Still, the feds prosecuted the hell out of him, a case only dropped when he ended his life. This is a crime if what he did was.
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
Straight from OpenAI's Brockman and Microsoft's Nadella - ‘doom loop’ for the entire web [as they vacuum up and substitute the work of journalism and threaten their economic foundations]. /2
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
Blood boiling. Not a good look for OpenAI or Greg Brockman here: “ah nice” in response to “a hack to get around nytimes paywall” in his efforts “to scrape” The Times website. After many points on his bragging about OpenAI's substitution for news. /4
@ddayen David Dayen on x
Hacking the site presumably because being a subscriber and scraping would get you noticed. Aaron Swartz was prosecuted and driven to suicide for this, and he didn't do it for a financial purpose.
@chadwahl Chad Wahlquist on x
The irony of it being the NYT who also sells your data to third parties like your home address. Has everyone gone mad in the pursuit of money?
@natem_tributary Nate Monroe on x
Given all the talk about regulation, it seems underdiscussed that one idea is simple criminal and civil accountability. If the (p)doom bots housed in the (p)doom labs break the law, or steal another's work or hack someone, prosecution and civil liability should be on the table.
@birdyword Mike Bird on x
So funny that there's a 150yr old technology for immediately contacting co-conspirators which is basically after-the-fact impossible to monitor for lawbreaking, and people prefer to discuss illegal activity over the more modern incredibly easy-to-monitor alternatives.
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
new unredacted filings in the publishers (including my employer) vs OpenAI and Microsoft lawsuit Microsoft's Director of applied science calls LLM training “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions” asked MSFT and OAI for comment, nothing yet. NYT declines comment.
@loudmouthjulia Julia Alexander on x
your reminder — in case pivot to video, facebook newsfeed, youtube ad monopoly, google ai overview/gemini didn't make it clear — these people do not care about media/creators businesses they ruin if they can build trillion dollar companies. they'll fuck you. every single time
@edzitron Ed Zitron on x
Does the slowdown cover this or what
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
Not good, OpenAI. “Read this NYTimes” article.. “Summarize” this NYTimes article... (NYT content in red). /3
@kyliebytes Kylie Robison on x
couldnt they have just... paid the subscription fee if they were gonna scrape it all anyway? lmfao
@signulll @signulll on x
i recently used an open weight model i've customized to find & test promotion codes while shopping. one time it found an employee only code for 60% off everything at a major retailer, & i've used it like 5 times already. i know i should probably email them at this point but i was…
Jürgen Geuter Jürgen Geuter on linkedin
The summary judgement of the NYTimes vs. OpenAI/Microsoft was unsealed. And it contains this banger by Microsoft's Director of Applied Scient Brent Hecht: …
@kint Jason Kint on bluesky
Looks like Financial Times is first to report on today's incredible revelations about OpenAI and Microsoft. /12 giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/ ...
@jplebreton@mastodon.social @jplebreton@mastodon.social on mastodon
anyways all the torturous arguments these guys tried to make about slorking up the entire internet of human creativity? a big load of crap; they knew what they were doing, they even understood the implications. they laughed and did it anyway, not thinking they'd ever be held ac…
r/antiai r on reddit
Microsoft exec called AI scraping the “largest theft of labor in human history”
r/technology r on reddit
OpenAI staff knew the ‘existential threat’ AI posed to publishers, New York Times claims
r/BetterOffline r on reddit
Microsoft exec called AI scraping the “largest theft of labor in human history”
r/worldnews r on reddit
Microsoft exec called AI scraping the “largest theft of labor in human history”
r/aiwars r on reddit
Microsoft exec called AI scraping ‘the largest theft of labor in human history,’ new unredacted filings reveal | TechCrunch
@angrydonkeynews @angrydonkeynews on bluesky
Per the lawsuit, a top Microsoft executive privately described the companies' AI training practices as “theft,” and OpenAI's own leadership said its AI models posed an “existential threat” to the publishers and journalists whose work trained them. — techcrunch.com/2026/09/17/m.…
@tyleraking.com Tyler King on bluesky
“In another document, Hecht contradicted Microsoft and OpenAI's argument that training AI on news content is fair use, suggesting that the plan to widely scrape news made 'a complete mockery of the idea of 'fair use.”
@olifox Oliver Fuchs on bluesky
“Our AI content strategy has started a ‘doom loop’ (...) It is highly unusual that an end-product threatens the economic foundations of its essential suppliers, but that is the situation we have created for our LLM business with respect to its 'content supply chain”
@miskaknapek Miska Knapek on bluesky
“Microsoft recorded 83-93% drops in click-through for some news plaintiffs & 51-94% for others. Suddenly, it becomes easier to see how declining news revenue could rob chatbots of t abundant streams of reliable information that makes them such groundbreaking tools.” — arstechn…
@jbaert@mastodon.social Jeroen Baert on mastodon
The quotes in this piece .... from internal Microsoft documents. https://www.404media.co/... [image]
@tante.cc @tante.cc on bluesky
“Executives working on AI at Microsoft and OpenAI admitted what its critics have been saying all along: Large language models are predatory pieces of technology that have been built on what a Microsoft e...'Doom Loop': OpenAI and Microsoft Admits LLMs Are Destroying the Web and B…
@dustrial.net @dustrial.net on bluesky
“Doom loop has entered the chat” — www.404media.co/doom-loop-op... [image]
@jaennaet.fi Jännät on bluesky
«Executives at [MS and OpenAI] admitted [that] Large language models are predatory pieces of technology that have been built on [...] “largest theft of labor in human history.” An internal Microsoft document said generative AI products have created a “doom loop” that is killing …
@fransbouma.com Frans Bouma on bluesky
techcrunch.com/2026/09/17/m... So, Microsoft, you're going to remove the stolen data from Copilot and by admission ChatGPT, right? — Oh haha of course not. Big corp can steal whatever they want and call it a product. — Fuck you
Nick Drew Nick Drew on linkedin
I'm far from the only or first person to highlight this, but unsealed court documents from the OpenAI vs Microsoft court case in the US make clear …
Glenn Gabe Glenn Gabe on linkedin
I shared about this yesterday. I recommend everyone read it -> NYT court filing: ChatGPT's head wrote that publishers face an “existential threat” …
@josephcox Joseph Cox on bluesky
OpenAI and Microsoft admitted LLMs are predatory tech built on “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” and the “largest theft of labor in human history.” An internal Microsoft document said AI has created a “doom loop” that is killing “the entire web.” www.404media.…
@johncarlbaker John Carl Baker on bluesky
Some real smoking gun material here: — “According to the documents, when a staffer wrote Greg Brockman, OpenAI's president, and told him about developing “a hack to get around nytimes paywall,” Mr. Brockman responded “ah nice.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/17/t...
r/ABoringDystopia r on reddit
‘Doom Loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft Admits LLMs Are Destroying the Web and Built on Theft
r/antiai r on reddit
‘Doom Loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft Admits LLMs Are Destroying the Web and Built on Theft
r/AIDangers r on reddit
‘Doom Loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft Admits LLMs Are Destroying the Web and Built on Theft

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