Digital Content Next files court document arguing AI retrieval is already harming publishers in NYT v OpenAI case

On 29 October 2026, trade body Digital Content Next (DCN) filed a document in support of The New York Times and other news publishers in their ongoing copyright case against OpenAI and Microsoft, arguing that AI content retrieval is already harming publishers' businesses. The filing presents survey data from DCN members: unique visitors to leading US online publishers' sites fell 26% between 2023 and 2025, total page views fell 18%, and total minutes spent fell 11%.

DCN said referral traffic from Google search fell 10% on average in May and June 2025 compared with a year earlier, and that a repeat survey across the same eight-week period in 2026 showed an even larger drop of 22% year on year. Both advertising revenue and total revenue for its members began a downward trajectory in 2025, each falling 5% compared with the previous year. The filing cited a 2026 study by Carnegie Mellon University and the Indian School of Business finding that Google AI Overviews reduce outbound organic clicks to publishers' webpages by 39.8%, and a 2025 survey of New York Times subscribers in which 36% of those who used or paid for ChatGPT for news agreed the tool meant they no longer needed news from The New York Times at all.

DCN argued that scraping publisher content does not meet the threshold of fair use because AI products result in substantial negative impacts on the digital publishing market, and described AI summarisation of publishers' original content as an existential threat to the industry. The filing is an argument to the court, not a ruling: both sides have applied for summary judgment, and the court has not decided the fair-use question. Press Gazette also reported that the Open Markets Institute and the News/Media Association filed their own briefs in the case, but those filings are not the subject of this item.