It’s not that simple.
I will not discuss, if OpenAI has standing to sue xtekky. We do not even know the details of the exchange between xtekky and OpenAI.
But the issue of openess(1) and leeching is independent of whether OpenAI can actually bring the case to the court. It’s convenient to oversimplify and put this division on the edge of the services directly used by gpt4free. Here it’s gpt4free-and-services, here is services-and-OpenAI, each area is completely independent of each other. But I believe this model has a mistake here: the separation is hardly perfect. It’s a clusterfuck of feedbacks.
Let’s take a simple(2) scenario as an example. With volume orders there is usually an assumption about usage level. It’s an important factor shaping the final price. Buying in large quantities may(3) decrease unit price during negotiations. But after that it becomes a situation of increased demand with fixed supply and fixed price. Additionally binding supplier’s resources. So increased load on these “edge” services feeds back to OpenAI.
(1) Which OpenAI does not claim for a long time, and the lack of which is well known.
(2) Probably much simpler than what actually happens. But I choose this one, as this is something I know.
(3) May, not must.