Judge Orders OpenAI to Release Millions of ChatGPT Logs in Copyright Battle

OpenAI has been directed to hand over millions of anonymised ChatGPT user logs in its high-profile copyright dispute with the New York Times and other news organisations, following a ruling by a federal judge in Manhattan.

 

US Magistrate Judge Ona Wang, in a decision made public on Wednesday, held that the 20 million chat records are relevant to the publishers’ claims and can be disclosed without compromising user privacy.

 

The ruling rejects OpenAI’s objections to an earlier order requiring the company to submit the logs as evidence. “There are multiple layers of protection in this case precisely because of the highly sensitive and private nature of much of the discovery,” Judge Wang noted.

 

An OpenAI spokesperson pointed to an earlier blog post by the company’s Chief Information Security Officer, Dane Stuckey, who argued that the Times’ request “disregards long-standing privacy protections” and violates “common-sense security practices.”

 

OpenAI has appealed Judge Wang’s order to US District Judge Sidney Stein, who is presiding over the case.

 

Newspapers owned by Alden Global Capital’s MediaNews Group are also part of the lawsuit. Frank Pine, the group’s executive editor, said in a statement that OpenAI’s leadership was “hallucinating when they thought they could get away with withholding evidence about how their business model relies on stealing from hardworking journalists.”

 

Filed in 2023, the case is among several brought by copyright holders against tech companies, including Microsoft and Meta, over the use of protected content to train AI models.

The news organisations argue that the logs are critical for determining whether ChatGPT reproduced their copyrighted material and for challenging OpenAI’s claim that they “hacked” the system to fabricate evidence.

 

OpenAI has maintained that disclosing the logs risks revealing confidential user data and that “99.99%” of the transcripts have no bearing on the alleged infringement.

 

Judge Wang previously held that privacy concerns would be addressed through OpenAI’s “exhaustive de-identification” process and other safeguards, reiterating on Wednesday that these measures would “reasonably mitigate associated privacy concerns.”

 

She ordered the company to produce the anonymised logs within seven days.