Microsoft and OpenAI lose bid to keep internal documents calling web scraping 'theft' secret
A court has ruled that Microsoft and OpenAI must disclose internal communications in which executives reportedly described AI training data scraping as 'the largest theft of labor in human history.'
Briefing
- Hacker News: A court has ruled that Microsoft and OpenAI must disclose internal communications in which executives reportedly described AI training data scraping as 'the largest theft of labor in human history.'
Why it matters
This ruling exposes potentially damaging admissions from two of the most powerful players in AI, directly challenging the legal and ethical foundation of scraping public web data for model training. If the documents confirm that executives internally viewed scraping as theft, it could undermine their public defense of fair use and fuel regulatory action, class-action lawsuits, and stricter anti-bot measures across the industry.
Sources
- Reported · Hacker News · 2026-09-17 — Microsoft, OpenAI lose fight to hide internal docs admitting scraping is theft
Watch next
Will the disclosed documents contain explicit admissions that reshape the legal landscape for AI training data scraping?