In a 12-page opinion, Judge Sidney Stein agreed with Magistrate Judge Ona Wang’s denial of OpenAI’s motion to compel (1) the New York Times to produce information about the Times’s own use of AI tools, as well as its alleged decreases in revenues and Times’ licensing efforts; and (2) the Authors Guild book plaintiffs to produce information about their own use of ChatGPT and market for their books.
Judge Stein devoted 12 pages of analysis to OpenAI’s and Microsoft’s arguments, with a fair amount of discussion of both fair use and the Sony safe harbor’s reference to substantial noninfringing uses. Most of the analysis relates to the New York Times case. If OpenAI and Microsoft lose their case, we should expect they will argue that at least some of these rulings constitute reversible legal error. Trial court judges get a lot of discretion in deciding these discovery disputes, but, as you can tell from Judge Stein’s careful opinion, a good deal of the decision hinges on legal interpretations of case law.
Excerpts from Judge Stein’s order
