The Wikimedia Foundation, responsible for Wikipedia, has weighed in to give its opinion in the New York Times’ (NYT) current claim against OpenAI for alleged copyright infringement, after OpenAI allegedly trained its ChatGPT model on numerous NYT articles and publications.
The Wikimedia Foundation has requested leave to file an amicus curiae brief, a concept in the US courts that allows for unrelated third parties to provide assistance to the US courts in decision-making. The Wikimedia Foundation seeks to provide clarity to the courts, not to supplement either argument made by NYT or OpenAI, but to urge the judge to consider OpenAI’s use of the NTY works on a use-by-use basis, rather than as an all-encompassing assessment. The Wikimedia Foundation has submitted that where AI merely references a published work, rather than actually recycling content for its own outputs, then this should not constitute copyright infringement per the US Supreme Court’s Warhol decision, which involved much debate around fair use of copyright works.
In that context, the Wikimedia Foundation reportedly intends to submit to the court that AI training using copyright works would constitute an ordinary infringement, but AI making mere references to publications would be fair use. Whether the US courts accept The Wikimedia Foundation’s request to file, as well as the brief itself, is yet to be seen. Though, another consideration will be how much weight the judge actually gives the brief in making its decision.
If you have any questions on the above, or if you need any advice or support in respect of your own Intellectual Property, please do not hesitate to contact the team at McDaniels Law on 0191 281 4000 or legal@mcdanielslaw.com.
