AI training built on fair use looks shaky when the companies' own people call it "astonishing theft"

A new court filing by The New York Times and other plaintiffs cites previously undisclosed internal emails and sworn testimony from OpenAI and Microsoft executives.

The New York Times and several other media companies have filed a joint summary judgment brief in US District Court in New York. Joining the Times are the Daily News group, which includes the Chicago Tribune and Denver Post, and Ziff Davis, which owns CNET, IGN, and PCMag. The plaintiffs also include the Center for Investigative Reporting, home to Mother Jones, and The Intercept.

The plaintiffs are seeking billions of dollars in damages, according to the Financial Times. The 92-page brief is part of consolidated multidistrict litigation that brings together several lawsuits, beginning with the New York Times suit filed in December 2023.

Executives' internal statements undercut the fair use defense

The brief draws on internal emails, Slack messages, and sworn testimony disclosed during discovery, including statements that undercut the AI companies' fair use defense.

Microsoft's director of applied science, Brent Hecht, called the practice "an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions" and possibly the "largest theft of labor in human history." He also wrote that a successful fair use defense would arguably "make a complete mockery of the idea of 'fair use.'" Microsoft told the Financial Times these comments "reflect one employee's individual perspective" and "are not a legal analysis."

The US Copyright Office also concluded in May 2025 that fair use cannot apply broadly given the sheer scale at which AI companies copy data. The official who oversaw the report was later fired by the Trump administration.

An internal Microsoft document describes a self-reinforcing cycle it calls a "doom loop."

OpenAI internally described local news, a core business for the Daily News group, as a "pretty common quer[y]" in ChatGPT. Other studies have also found that chatbot answers sharply reduce traffic to the open web.