New York Times Wants Access to Top OpenAI Executives’ Documents

The New York Times Co. wants to subject OpenAI Inc.'s CEO Sam Altman, as well as other top executives, to discovery in its copyright lawsuit against the tech company.

In a redacted letter addressed to Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wong on Monday, the newspaper requested setting up a conference to discuss adding 17 “high-level employees” to the discovery process, including Altman, company president Greg Brockman and chief technology officer Mira Murati, who have access to “documents central to the issue of the case.”

Those “issues” span topics like licensing negotiations with the New York Times to technical subjects like “retrieval augmented generation,” the process through which generative AI models pull information from an authoritative source outside its training data, according to the filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The publication said OpenAI has been trying to limit the number of witnesses in possession of allegedly critical evidence since June 5. After The New York Times requested on June 14 to add 24 extra document custodians on top of the 12 already decided, OpenAI only to 4 of those individuals, the letter said.

But the tech company’s failure to identify all individuals in possession of relevant documents is “particularly improper,” the Times said, because it was ordered to provide an “initial set” of 24 custodians in a narrower copyright lawsuit, Tremblay v. OpenAI.

This isn’t the first time the newspaper has requested a judge to set up a conference to sort out a discovery impasse. After the publication sued OpenAI and Microsoft Corp. in December last year, OpenAI and the Times have been locked in a discovery brawl for months, with the Times requesting twice-monthly discovery status conferences all the way back in May. While the Times has asked for information on how the firm’s generative AI models were trained, OpenAI has demanded documents like journalists’ reporting notes and employees’ OpenAI account information.

The newspaper also filed an amended complaint on Monday, upping the number of asserted number of copyrighted works to over 10 million from 3 million, according to the new filing.

OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

New York Times is represented by Susman Godfrey LLP and Rothwell, Figg, Ernst & Manbeck PC. OpenAI is represented by Latham & Watkins LLP, Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP, and Morrison & Foerster LLP. Microsoft is represented by Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.

The case is: The New York Times Company v. Microsoft Corporation et al, S.D.N.Y., 1:23-cv-11195, document filed 8/12/24.