Fair (Use) or Foul?

In the United States, the rights of authors of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, songs, drama and other written works are protected by copyright laws. Works created in 1978 or later are protected for the life of the author plus 70 years. Works created before 1978 are protected for 95 years. In the case of work for hire, the hiring organization holds the copyright for 95 years as well. For example, the writing of this discussion prompt and other Canvas pages provided by faculty subject matter experts (SMEs) belongs to DeVry University, not the writers. These copyright regulations are described in more detail in Chapter 4 of our textbook (Quinn, 2020, pp. 176-179).

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, how can a college student like me write a research paper without infringing upon copyright law? The answer is in the concept of fair use. Fair use is not a hard and fast rule, but rather a set of four common-sense guidelines.

• Purpose: Using content owned by others is generally deemed fair use if the the copyrighted material are used for educational or scholarly purposes; copyright law prohibits for-profit use without permission of the content owner.
• Type of work: Using others' nonfiction content is more apt to be considered fair use than using others' creative work.
• Quantity: Using a short quotation is likely to be deemed fair use, but using significant content or an entire work is not.
• Impact: If the use is unlikely to negatively affect sales of the copyrighted work, it is likely to be judged fair use.

(Quinn, 2020, p. 185)

This all brings us to yet another controversy related to artificial intelligence. On December 27, 2023, the New York Times filed suit against Microsoft and OpenAI for what it contends is unauthorized use of its copyrighted materials (Grynbaum & Mac, 2023). The lawsuit claims that ChatGPT was trained in part by being fed New York Times articles. This training allows ChatGPT to generate information that directly competes with the New York Times and harms its business model, which relies heavily on paid subscribers to its online news service.

Instructions

In your initial post, respond to at least two of the following three questions. Be sure to fully explain your perspectives. So that you can respond in a more knowledgeable way, please read the article by Grynbaum and Mac first. See the reference to it below.

1. Does ChatGPT's use of New York Times articles violate fair use guidelines? If so, which guidelines does it violate?
2. Consider the lawsuit from the ethical perspectives of Kantianism and utilitarianism. Which ethical perspective would more strongly support the New York Times' claim?
3. In addition to OpenAI and Microsoft, should ordinary users of ChatGPT be held liable for copyright infringement? Does it depend on how they use it?

In your follow-up posts, respond to two peers' posts and expand on their ideas. Search out students whose views differ from your own to build a constructive dialogue. Remember to cite any sources you use, whether you copy and "quote" their words or paraphrase their ideas.

Try to make your first post by Wednesday, and remember to reply to your classmate's posts!

References

Grynbaum, M & Mac, R. (2023, December 27). The Times sues OpenAI and Microsoft over A.I. use of copyrighted work. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-times-open-ai-microsoft-lawsuit.html#:~:text=1.3k-,The%20Times%20Sues%20OpenAI%20and%20%20Microsoft%20Over%20A.I.,with%20it%2C%20the%20lawsuit%20said

Quinn, M. (2020). Ethics for the Information Age(8th ed.). Pearson.