NYT v. OpenAI docs renew debate on paying for AI's news use
Newly unsealed filings in The New York Times' copyright suit against OpenAI and Microsoft show OpenAI researchers pitched president Greg Brockman on ways around the Times' paywall — he replied "nice" — while a Microsoft executive described the company's mass web scraping in 2023 as "unprecedented labor theft." A commentary piece argues that monthly subscriptions or free access cannot match AI agents that take a single paragraph or data point, and that micropayments — backed by verifiable agent identity, scoped authorization, intent confirmation, anti-fraud checks, audit logs and dispute handling — may be the practical fix. It notes Mastercard, Visa, Stripe and Tempo have begun rolling out machine-to-machine payment protocols and standards.
If AI agents increasingly replace visits to original sources without returning value, incentives to fund costly human knowledge production could weaken — and the unsealed documents may feed the ongoing copyright litigation.
隨著《紐約時報》（The New York Times）對 OpenAI 與微軟（Microsoft）的著作權訴訟持續延燒，最新解封的法庭文件再度把 AI 訓練資料來源與內容付費問題推上檯面。文件顯示，OpenAI 研究人員曾向公司總裁葛雷格·布羅克曼（Greg Brockman）提到「繞過《紐約時報》付費牆」的方法，對方回應「不錯」；另有微軟內部主管更在 2023 年將公司大規模抓取網路內容形容為「前所未見的勞動竊取」，顯示科技業內部對相關做法並非毫無疑慮。
#OpenAI#Microsoft#The New York Times#Greg Brockman#Mastercard#Visa#Stripe#Tempo