OpenAI appeals court order forcing it to preserve all ChatGPT data

OpenAI is appealing a court decision that requires it to retain ChatGPT data indefinitely as part of a copyright violation case. The company claims the ruling compromises user privacy and sets a bad precedent. A federal judge ordered OpenAI to preserve ChatGPT output log data that would otherwise be deleted due to user requests. The judge justified the ruling due to the significant volume of deleted conversations and asked OpenAI if it could be addressed through anonymization. The New York Times sought the order to track OpenAI's alleged copyright violations, including instances where users requested chat deletions. A federal judge allowed the case to proceed, agreeing with the NYT's argument that OpenAI's tech induced users to plagiarize. OpenAI views the order as a privacy issue, conflicting with its user privacy commitments and weakening privacy protections. The order does not impact ChatGPT Enterprise or ChatGPT Edu customers. The copyright cases involving OpenAI, Google, and other companies are ongoing, with courts yet to decide on massive-scale copyright infringement. The tech companies argue that training is protected by "fair use" copyright law, while content creators claim AI harms their livelihoods with little to no compensation.