Eight prominent US newspapers, including The New York Daily News and The Chicago Tribune, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft in a New York federal court on Tuesday, alleging copyright infringement related to the training of ChatGPT and Copilot chatbots.
The newspapers, which include The New York Daily News and The Chicago Tribune, are owned by Alden Global Capital, a Florida-based hedge fund that created the second-largest US newspaper group behind USA Today owner Gannett when it bought the Tribune publishing chain in 2021.
“This lawsuit arises from defendants purloining millions of the publishers’ copyrighted articles without permission and without payment to fuel the commercialization of their generative artificial intelligence products, including ChatGPT and (Microsoft’s) Copilot,” according to the filing.
“As this lawsuit will demonstrate, defendants must both obtain the publishers’ consent to use their content and pay fair value for such use,” the filing said.
Other newspapers involved in the suit were 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.
In response, OpenAI stated that it takes great care in its products and design process to support news organizations, citing constructive partnerships and conversations with various outlets around the world.
However, the statement did not directly address the accusations in the lawsuit.
Several news organizations, including The Associated Press, Financial Times, Germany’s Axel Springer, French daily Le Monde and Spanish conglomerate Prisa Media have entered partnerships with OpenAI instead of pursuing legal action.
This lawsuit closely resembles a previous case filed by The New York Times in December, in which OpenAI was accused of stealing content to train its AI.
OpenAI defended its actions, arguing that the use of publicly available data, including news articles, for general training purposes constitutes fair use.
Microsoft declined to comment on the lawsuit.
