Newly unsealed court filings have revealed that Microsoft privately characterized OpenAI's data acquisition methods as "theft." These revelations indicate that both Microsoft and OpenAI engaged in similar practices, specifically scraping content from paywalled "Times" sources. The scraped material was then utilized by both technology companies to construct their respective datasets.
Furthermore, the documents indicate that despite their internal critique, both Microsoft and OpenAI recognized the severe consequences of these actions. They internally acknowledged that their methods of content acquisition would critically harm, or "gut," publishers. This suggests a known impact on the publishing industry from their data practices.