What is the judge even thinking here, it is so dumb.
She asked OpenAI's legal team to consider a ChatGPT user who "found some way to get around the pay wall" and "was getting The New York Times content somehow as the output." If that user "then hears about this case and says, 'Oh, whoa, you know I’m going to ask them to delete all of my searches and not retain any of my searches going forward,'" the judge asked, wouldn't that be "directly the problem" that the order would address?
She’s a magistrate judge, she’s handling discovery matters, not the substantive issues at trial; the plaintiffs are specifically alleging spoliation by OpenAI/Microsoft (the parties were previously ordered to work out discovery issues, which obviously didn’t happen) and the judge is basically ensuring that potentially-discoverable information is retained, though it may not actually be discoverable in practice (or require a special master). It’s a wide-ranging order, but in this case that’s probably indicative of the judge believing that the defendants have been acting in bad faith, particularly since she specifically asked them for an amelioration plan which they appear to have refused to provide.
It's not dumb, litigation holds are a standard practice.
How often do litigation holds apply to an entire business? I mean, would it be reasonable to ask Mastercard to indefinitely retain records of the most trivial transactions?
If you had a case that implicated every transaction Mastercard was making? Unless you needed every single one, I'm sure an order would be limited to whatever transactions are potentially relevant.
Mastercard wouldn't get away with saying "it would be too hard to preserve evidence of our wrongdoing, so we're making sure it's all deleted".
The whole controversy here is that the order OpenAI received is not limited to whatever chats are potentially relevant.
The order isn't about handing anything over. It says "don't delete anything until we've sorted out what you will be required to hand over later. We don't trust you enough in the mean time not to delete stuff that would later be found relevant so no deleting at all for now."
Yes is like mandating back door to encryption to solve crimes. Wouldn’t that solve that problem?! Dumb as a door stop
If you are party to a lawsuit, the judge is going to require that you preserve relevant evidence. There is nothing unusual about this order.