News Outlets Seek Sanctions Against OpenAI Over Alleged Evidence Withholding in Copyright Suit

By NewSunSEO | July 13, 2026

The New York Times and several other news organizations asked a federal judge on July 9, 2026 to sanction OpenAI for allegedly withholding evidence in a long-running copyright dispute. The publishers accused the company of deliberately failing to preserve training data and output logs that could show how ChatGPT reproduces their journalism, and asked the court to order OpenAI to pay attorneys’ fees.

According to court filings reviewed by TechCrunch, the outlets claim OpenAI misled the court about its ability to search its own training corpus and customer chat logs. The filing alleges that OpenAI “intentionally hid its discovery capabilities” for two years, a charge that marks the latest escalation in a legal battle that began with a December 2023 lawsuit.

What is the underlying lawsuit about?

The New York Times sued OpenAI and its backer Microsoft in December 2023, alleging that the company infringed copyright by training its generative AI models on millions of Times articles without permission. The suit was later consolidated with similar complaints from other news organizations. At the core of the dispute is whether training AI systems on copyrighted material qualifies as fair use.

Courts have produced mixed signals on that question. In June 2025, a federal judge ruled in a separate case that Anthropic’s training on lawfully acquired books constituted fair use. In October 2025, a different judge allowed a class-action lawsuit by authors including George R.R. Martin to proceed, finding that AI outputs can be substantially similar to copyrighted works.

What did the news outlets allege in the July 9 filing?

In their July 9 filing, the news outlets stated that OpenAI “intentionally hid its discovery capabilities” throughout the litigation. The filing argued: “There is no question that it happened. Nor should there be one about what was copied, how often or to what end.”

The publishers asked the court to find that ChatGPT outputs show “substantial and systematic grounding on and regurgitation” of their reporting. The request follows an earlier order compelling OpenAI to preserve all ChatGPT conversations, including deleted ones, and a separate order requiring the company to hand over 20 million anonymized chat logs to the plaintiffs.

How has OpenAI responded?

OpenAI has consistently argued that training on publicly available material is protected under the fair use doctrine. The company maintains that pure regurgitation of newspaper articles by ChatGPT is rare and that its systems learn general patterns rather than storing specific copies. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the sanction motion.

How does this fit the broader copyright landscape?

The Times lawsuit is one of dozens of copyright actions facing OpenAI. Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster filed a separate suit in March 2026 alleging “massive copyright infringement.” In 2023, actress Sarah Silverman joined authors Richard Kadrey and Christopher Golden in suing both OpenAI and Meta over similar claims.

Shayne Longpre, a researcher quoted by the New York Times in a July 2024 journal piece, captured a wider concern: “We’re seeing a rapid decline in consent to use data across the web that will have ramifications not just for AI companies, but for researchers, academics, and noncommercial entities.”

The outcome of the sanction request could affect the scope of discovery in a case that already involves the compelled production of more than 20 million user conversations. A ruling in the publishers’ favor would strengthen their position heading toward trial and could pressure other defendants in similar suits to reassess how they preserve and produce internal data.

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