Microsoft exec called AI scraping the "largest theft of labor in human history"
Newly unsealed court documents in the news organizations' copyright lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI show how the two companies privately assessed the risk AI scraping posed to journalism before launching products such as ChatGPT and Copilot. The material surfaced in a motion for summary judgment filed by news plaintiffs led by The New York Times and unsealed on a Thursday; the news organizations say it shows exactly how Microsoft and OpenAI viewed the threat internally.
According to the plaintiffs, Microsoft Director of Applied Science Brent Hecht repeatedly warned in internal documents that scraping news content to train AI was "an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions," at one point calling it perhaps the "largest theft of labor in human history." In a separate document, Hecht wrote that the plan to scrape news broadly made "a complete mockery of the idea of 'fair use.'" That statement runs directly against the fair use defense Microsoft and OpenAI have used publicly to justify training on news content.
At OpenAI, ChatGPT head Nick Turley wrote in an internal message that publishers would face an "existential threat" from commercial products trained on news content that could substitute for the news providers themselves, according to the plaintiffs. A separate Microsoft document described a "doom loop" that would "hurt the performance of our models and the entire web at the same time," and acknowledged the position was unusual: "It is highly unusual that an end-product threatens the economic foundations of its essential suppliers, but that is the situation we have created for our LLM business with respect to its 'content supply chain.'"
The quotes come from the news organizations' court filing characterizing the internal documents, not from the full unredacted texts, and the source report includes no response from Microsoft or OpenAI.
Key facts
- A motion for summary judgment from news plaintiffs led by The New York Times, unsealed on a Thursday, exposed internal Microsoft and OpenAI documents on AI scraping of news content.
- Microsoft Director of Applied Science Brent Hecht repeatedly called the practice "an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions" and, per the plaintiffs, perhaps "the largest theft of labor in human history."
- In another document, Hecht said the plan to scrape news broadly made "a complete mockery of the idea of 'fair use,'" contradicting Microsoft and OpenAI's public fair use defense.
- OpenAI ChatGPT head Nick Turley wrote internally that publishers would face an "existential threat" from AI products trained on news content that could substitute for news providers.
- A Microsoft document warned of a "doom loop" hurting both model performance and "the entire web," calling it unusual for an end product to threaten the economic foundations of its own essential suppliers.
Why it matters
The case turns on whether training AI models on scraped news content counts as fair use, the legal defense Microsoft and OpenAI have relied on publicly. Internal statements from their own staff, now part of the public court record, describe the same practice as theft and as a threat to the news industry that supplies the content, undercutting that defense from the inside rather than from an outside critic.
Who it affects
Microsoft, OpenAI and the news organizations suing them, led by The New York Times, are the direct parties. The outcome also matters to other publishers watching the case for signals on licensing leverage, and to AI companies whose training practices rest on the same fair use argument now being contested with the defendants' own internal words.
How to use it
There is no product or price here. For anyone following the litigation, such as journalists, publishers or AI companies assessing legal exposure, the unsealed motion is now public record and the quoted documents can be cited directly rather than relied on secondhand.
How solid is it
The quotes originate from internal Microsoft and OpenAI documents, but reach the public through the news plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment describing and excerpting them, not through the full unredacted files. Several of the strongest phrases are explicitly attributed to what the plaintiffs say the documents show, rather than presented as documents obtained independently by the reporting outlet.
Risks and caveats
A motion for summary judgment argues one side's case; it is not a court ruling, and the source includes no response or comment from Microsoft or OpenAI. Some quoted lines, including the "doom loop" passage, are drawn from an unnamed author's document rather than attributed to Hecht or Turley by name, and should not be read as either executive's personal statement.
“largest theft of labor in human history”
— Brent Hecht, Microsoft Director of Applied Science, in an internal document (as characterized by the news plaintiffs' court filing)