Eight major U.S. newspapers have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming they have violated copyright laws.

The lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of New York and contends that the companies took copyrighted material from these newspapers without permission to train their artificial intelligence (AI) products, such as ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot.

Details of the Lawsuit

The plaintiffs in the case involve The New York Daily News, The Chicago Tribune, The Orlando Sentinel, The Sun Sentinel of Florida, The San Jose Mercury News, The Denver Post, The Orange County Register, and The St. Paul Pioneer Press. 

These newspapers, under the management of the the MediaNews Group and Tribune Publishing subsidiaries of Alden Global Capital, allege that millions of their copyrighted articles were used to train the AI models developed by OpenAI and Microsoft. The legal action does not state any specific monetary damages; rather, it focuses on the necessity of compensatory measures and a jury trial.

Allegations Against AI Practices

The complaint underscores a growing concern among news publishers that their content is being utilized without proper compensation or acknowledgment, potentially undermining traditional news platforms.

According to the lawsuit, the AI models not only use copyrighted text but also sometimes generate outputs that misattribute or distort information, which could harm the publishers’ credibility and revenue streams.

According to the publishers, AI-generated responses usually reproduce the content word for word from the journals stored behind the paywalls without even linking back to the original sites. This habit could lead to the reduction of the demand for the direct subscriptions, affecting the financial state of those publications.

Response from OpenAI and Microsoft

As for the latest lawsuit, however, OpenAI and Microsoft have not yet responded, although in some previous cases, such as the New York Times, they have defended their actions. The companies claim that teaching AI models with internet-derived data is legal, finding comparisons with how other types of media utilize copyrighted content using fair use provisions.

They argue that the AI tools provide a revolutionary application and ought to be perceived as a technological progress rather than the replacement of human generated content.

The lawsuit is in the context of a wider inspection of ethical use of copyrighted materials in training AI models. The issue led to a multitude of responses in the media landscape as some publishers decided to negotiate with tech companies directly. For example, The Financial Times recently reached an agreement with OpenAI, setting a precedent for potential licensing arrangements.

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