Re: Nowhere do they say what of their private information Microsoft ever improperly collected
There is a big difference between the information contained in an NYT story, which is (now) public and can be freely repeated[1], and the expression of that information - the specific words and word order - which is what is copyrightable.
Spitting out verbatim (too large a chunk of) an article can be a copyright violation.
Repeating information from that article, using a different form of words - and especially if combined (even badly) with information gleaned from another source, is not.
In terms of a human, one is plagiarism, the other is research.
Not that any of this is supporting - or denigrating - LLMs, btw. Just - be accurate in thine attacks, lest ye be taken for an LLM thyself.
[1] until we get to questions of "right to removal"/"right to be forgotten", as appears to be the actual point of the complaint. Which, unless someone can provide a reference, seems to be aimed clearly at the LLM but not at the source of the information, the NYT articles, even though the latter are easier to get the info. Strange, that[2]
[2] cos MS is the Big Bad with deep pockets?