• by Ray Schultz , August 22, 2023

The New York Times, which earlier this month changed its terms of service to forbid the scraping of its content for use in AI training, has gone a step further: It has blocked OpenAI’s web crawler, according to The Verge.  

In addition, the Times is mulling a lawsuit against OpenAI, following weeks of negotiations over a potential licensing deal, NPR reports, citing unnamed sources.  

The Times has blocked GPTBot, the crawler recently introduced by OpenAI, since August 17, The Verge writes.  

Meanwhile, the negotiations with OpenAI became so contentious that lawyers for the Times are considering a lawsuit. The sides are tussling over payment by OpenAI for the right to incorporate Times content into its AI tools, NPR continues. 

In the update of its terms, the Times said it prohibits use of “robots, spiders, scripts, service, software or any manual or automatic device, tool, or process designed to data mine or scrape” its content.