News outlets including NYT urge court to deny OpenAI, Microsoft summary-judgment bids in copyright cases

On October 23, 2026, US news outlets including The New York Times filed oppositions to the summary-judgment motions by OpenAI and Microsoft in the consolidated copyright lawsuits in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, urging the court to deny the motions (MLex, Oct 23, 2026). MLex's summary quotes the plaintiffs: "According to Defendants, even copying that poses an 'existential threat' to the original content owner is 'fair use' so long as their technology is 'transformative.'" The outlets argued that transformativeness is merely one part of the first fair-use factor and that the defendants misconstrue it by focusing on how their technology works rather than whether they used copies of the plaintiffs' journalism for the same purpose as the original - delivering news to human readers. The opposition filings land on the October 23 briefing deadline in the consolidated S.D.N.Y. copyright cases (amicus briefs due Oct 30; replies Nov 20).