According to Gizmodo, OpenAI published a blog post on Wednesday called “Fighting the New York Times’ invasion of user privacy” that accuses the newspaper of seeking to expose 1.4 billion private ChatGPT conversations. The company is fighting a court requirement to hand over 20 million user conversations to the Times and its lawyers, arguing that more than 99.99% of these chats have nothing to do with the copyright lawsuit. OpenAI claims this data belongs to millions of users worldwide including families, students, doctors, and even journalists. The New York Times fired back with an equally heated statement calling OpenAI’s position “fear-mongering” and accusing the company of stealing copyrighted works to create competing products. This legal escalation comes four months after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confronted the Times on their Hard Fork podcast about the lawsuit.
Privacy or cover-up?
Here’s the thing about this legal fight – both sides are playing for incredibly high stakes. OpenAI is framing this as a massive privacy invasion that could expose sensitive conversations from millions of users. But the Times isn’t buying it, pointing out that OpenAI’s own terms of service already allow the company to train models on user chats and provide them for litigation. The newspaper says it only wants a sample of anonymized chats under protective order. So who’s telling the truth? Probably both, in their own way. OpenAI genuinely doesn’t want its internal workings exposed, and the Times genuinely wants evidence of copyright infringement. But the privacy angle gives OpenAI a much more sympathetic public argument than “we don’t want to show our training data.”
The legal chess game
Now, the legal maneuvering here is fascinating. OpenAI’s filing argues that the judge is misapplying a precedent from the Concord v. Anthropic case, claiming what Anthropic provided was much less invasive. About half their filing apparently dedicates space to this argument. But here’s what really matters – this isn’t just about legal technicalities. This is about setting precedents for how much access plaintiffs can get to AI company data during discovery. If OpenAI loses this fight, it could open the floodgates for other lawsuits to demand massive data dumps. That’s why they’re fighting so hard and using such dramatic language about being “one of the most targeted organizations in the world.”
Where this is heading
Basically, we’re watching two powerful institutions clash over fundamental questions about AI, copyright, and privacy. The Times wants to prove systematic copyright infringement, while OpenAI wants to protect its technology and user data. And honestly? This case could shape how AI companies handle discovery in future lawsuits for years to come. The outcome might determine whether plaintiffs can use legal discovery as a backdoor to examine AI training methods and internal data. Given how many other publishers and creators are lining up to sue AI companies, everyone in the industry is watching this case closely. The real question is whether courts will treat AI companies like tech platforms or content creators when it comes to discovery rules.
