Times Urges Status Conference to Resolve Schedule Disputes Among 4 N.Y. AI Cases

The New York Times Co. seeks a status conference to discuss the case schedule in its AI copyright infringement lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI, said the company’s letter Tuesday (docket 1:23-cv-11195) to U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein for Southern New York in Manhattan. Microsoft and OpenAI don’t oppose the request, it said. The Times proposes that its case follow the schedule to which the defendants stipulated in the three consolidated authors’ complaints, said the letter. Microsoft and OpenAI object to applying that schedule, but they each submitted different counterproposals, it said: “Given the variety of options presented to the Court, a status conference will help resolve the parties’ disputes over the schedule. Setting a schedule will also help all parties efficiently plan for discovery, which is already underway.” The Times alleges that generative AI tools from Microsoft and OpenAI rely on large-language models that were built by copying and using millions of the paper's copyrighted news articles, in violation of the Copyright Act, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and other statutes (see 2312270044).