Judge lifts order requiring OpenAI to preserve ChatGPT logs

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

The original May 13 order — which OpenAI vehemently opposed — stemmed from an ongoing lawsuit filed by the New York Times in 2023. The paper alleges that OpenAI trained its AI models on Times content without proper authorization or compensation. The NYT is one of several news publishers currently suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, including The Intercept, Alternet, and Mashable's own parent company, ZiffDavis.

In a new order filed on Oct. 9, federal judge Ona T. Wang released OpenAI from its obligation to "preserve and segregate all output log data that would otherwise be deleted on a going-forward basis." With a few exceptions, the company is no longer required to maintain logs past Sept. 26.

The initial preservation order had allowed NYT to investigate its claims of copyright infringement. OpenAI, however, argued that the requirement was an "overreach" — one that could compromise user privacy and data security. The company ultimately lost that fight, with Judge Wang ruling that ChatGPT users are "non-parties" to the lawsuit. By July, the plaintiffs had begun combing through the preserved logs, which largely consisted of ChatGPT outputs.

Although the preservation order has now been rescinded, any logs saved under it remain accessible.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

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.