Judge lifts order requiring OpenAI to preserve ChatGPT logs

A small but significant victory for OpenAI: the court order requiring the company to retain all of its ChatGPT data indefinitely has been lifted.

The initial May 13 order – which OpenAI fiercely opposed – stemmed from an ongoing lawsuit filed by the New York Times in 2023. The document alleges that OpenAI trained its AI models on Times content without proper authorization or compensation. THE New York Times is one of several news publishers currently suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, including The interception, Internetand Mashable’s parent company, ZiffDavis.

In a new order filed on October 9, Federal Judge Ona T. Wang released OpenAI from its obligation to “preserve and segregate all output log data that would otherwise be deleted in the future.” With few exceptions, the company is no longer required to keep logs after September 26.

The original preservation order had allowed New York Times to investigate its allegations of copyright infringement. OpenAI, however, argued that this requirement was an “excess” – one that could compromise user privacy and data security. The company ultimately lost that fight, with Judge Wang ruling that ChatGPT users were “non-parties” to the lawsuit. By July, the plaintiffs had begun going through the preserved logs, which largely consisted of ChatGPT results.

Although the preservation order has now been rescinded, all logs saved under it remain accessible. OpenAI is also still required to maintain logs related to accounts specifically flagged by the New York Times.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, filed a lawsuit in April against OpenAI, alleging that it violated Ziff Davis’ copyrights in the training and operation of its AI systems.