OpenAI, Inc. Copyright Infringement Litigation — Order denying OpenAI objections (Doc. 867)

In the consolidated OpenAI copyright litigation, the district judge denied OpenAI’s objections to two magistrate judge discovery orders requiring production of a 20 million-conversation, de-identified sample of consumer ChatGPT logs to news and class plaintiffs. OpenAI argued the magistrate judge insufficiently weighed users’ privacy interests and should have required a narrower, search-term filtered production. The court held the discovery rulings were neither clearly erroneous nor contrary to law, emphasizing proportionality and existing protections: de-identification, a reduced sample size, and a protective order. The order has practice implications for litigators handling AI-system logs and confidentiality by illustrating how courts may balance relevance against privacy interests when AI tool usage produces large volumes of sensitive data.