Unsealed court documents reveal OpenAI and Microsoft executives privately acknowledged their AI tools could replace news articles, contradicting their public fair use defense. This evidence emerges from The New York Times copyright lawsuit against both companies, which accuses them of using millions of articles to train models without permission. Following a ruling allowing core claims to proceed, publishers including The Seattle Times and a group of 400 local newspapers have filed similar suits. They demand commercial agreements, control over content usage, and fair compensation, arguing that AI companies cannot build commercial products using copyrighted news without authorization.