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The Southern District of New York has dismissed a copyright violation lawsuit brought by Raw Story Media, Inc. and AlterNet Media, Inc., alternative left-leaning online news outlets, against OpenAI, effectively shutting down claims that the generative AI firm violated copyrights by using scraped news content in its training data. 

This dismissal could be seen as an important moment in the ongoing battle over copyright and AI tools—particularly under Section 1202(b) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)—but it is worth noting that other cases have also failed to establish successful claims under this provision.

Let’s dive into what happened, why the judge dismissed the case, and what this means for the future of AI, copyright and the legality of tech companies to scrape content off the web without the creators’ express permission or compensation.

Understanding the DMCA’s Section 1202(b)

The lawsuit revolved around Section 1202(b) of the DMCA, a provision that aims to protect “copyright management information” (CMI).

This includes any author names, titles, and other metadata that identify copyrighted works. Sect...