Open Web at Risk? Wikipedia Enters AI Lawsuit

The Wikimedia Foundation has entered the copyright dispute between The New York Times and AI companies OpenAI and Microsoft. It filed an amicus brief advocating for a balanced approach to the use of published content for AI model training. The foundation fears that overly restrictive rulings could hinder technological innovation, while blanket fair use might lead to a closed web lacking essential secondary sources.

Wikipedia's stance supports fair use for certain AI training scenarios and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), with a caveat against uncredited regurgitation of existing articles. They argue that copyrighted content used for training LLMs that create something novel, distinct from the original sources, should be considered fair use. This position is significant as Wikipedia is itself a valuable dataset for LLM training.

General Counsel Stephen LaPorte stated that a carefully considered fair use ruling is vital for sustaining free knowledge and open-source technologies. He emphasized that Wikipedia thrives on accessible human knowledge. A summary judgment in this high-profile lawsuit is anticipated soon, with potential to set a precedent for numerous similar legal challenges.