NYT Drops Contributory Copyright Claims Against OpenAI in Proposed Amendment, Microsoft Now the Target

The New York Times has reconfigured its case against OpenAI and Microsoft rather than abandoning it.

In a proposed Third Amended Complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the Times dropped its contributory copyright infringement claim against OpenAI and redirected that theory toward Microsoft. As Bloomberg Law reported, the amended pleading accuses Microsoft of “actively encouraging OpenAI’s infringement by providing the AI firm with a supercomputer platform specifically designed to infringe copyrighted works to train models.” Ars Technica covered the same filing. The claim is now framed around Microsoft’s infrastructure and conduct rather than the model’s output alone.

The repositioning followed a Supreme Court decision that sharply raised the bar for holding a platform liable for its customers’ infringement. A specialist AI-copyright case tracker that covered the docket in detail identifies that precedent as Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment and reports the shift came in response to OpenAI’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, which argued the Times could not meet the intent standard for contributory liability. One nuance the multiple accounts surface: while Bloomberg Law described the amendment as filed, the case tracker notes the court has not formally granted leave to file the Third Amended Complaint. This is a proposed change, not yet an enacted one, a distinction that matters for anyone following the case’s procedural status.

What the proposed amendment confirms is that AI copyright plaintiffs are refining their theories under judicial pressure. Contributory infringement against a model developer requires proving intent, that the developer knew about and materially contributed to specific infringement. When a court holds that standard high, plaintiffs look for a defendant whose conduct is more clearly intentional. The theory against Microsoft, that it built and curated a platform specifically structured to enable OpenAI’s alleged infringement, is designed to satisfy a higher intent threshold.

The Times still has substantial claims against OpenAI remaining in the case; contributory infringement is one theory among several. What has changed is the strategic weight of who is carrying that specific claim and how it is framed.

For legal and compliance teams at AI companies, the implication worth watching is this: if the Microsoft theory gains traction, establishing that platform providers enabling AI model deployment can be liable as contributory infringers, the exposure landscape expands beyond model developers to the infrastructure layer. Cloud providers, API platforms, and enterprise AI deployment toolchains could find themselves inside the contributory liability frame that courts are currently calibrating.

The open question is whether the proposed amendment survives court review and whether the redirected Microsoft theory performs better at the motion-to-dismiss stage than the OpenAI version did.

Sources: Bloomberg Law, Ars Technica, and the chatgptiseatingtheworld.com case tracker.

TJS prior analysis on how White House AI frameworks handle contested copyright positions provides additional context on the federal policy backdrop against which these cases are playing out. The litigation and the policy track are moving in parallel, neither waiting for the other.