OpenAI ordered to turn over 20 million ChatGPT chats to the New York Times

Federal court orders OpenAI to disclose 20 million anonymized ChatGPT logs in New York Times lawsuit.

A federal judge has ruled that OpenAI must hand over millions of anonymized ChatGPT logs to the New York Times. According to Reuters, Judge Ona Wang said on Wednesday that roughly 20 million logs are relevant to determining whether OpenAI committed copyright violations and to addressing OpenAI's claim that the Times manipulated evidence.

OpenAI immediately appealed the decision. A spokesperson, citing security chief Dane Stuckey, warned that releasing these logs would ignore longstanding privacy standards and break with common security practices. Judge Wang rejected that argument, noting that the case includes several layers of protections precisely because the data is sensitive. She added that OpenAI's mitigation measures would appropriately address privacy concerns. OpenAI must provide the cleaned data within seven days.

The dispute is part of a broader wave of lawsuits accusing tech companies of using copyrighted works without permission to train their AI models. OpenAI argued in court that 99.99 percent of the requested transcripts had nothing to do with the accusations. The Times originally sought access to 120 million chat logs, while OpenAI offered 20 million, saying that anonymizing them would take about 12 weeks.

Original article from November 12, 2025:

The New York Times is asking OpenAI to hand over 20 million private ChatGPT conversations. According to OpenAI, the paper wants to see if users have used the AI to get around its paywall. OpenAI is fighting the request, calling it a serious invasion of user privacy because the demand includes people who have nothing to do with the lawsuit.

The New York Times had already asked OpenAI to store user content from ChatGPT and its API indefinitely, even if users had deleted their data, to preserve evidence. The dispute is part of a lawsuit filed in late 2023, where the New York Times accuses OpenAI of using its content to train AI models without permission.