Newspapers Sue OpenAI, Microsoft Over Alleged Copyright Infringement in AI Development

Two major newspapers have sued tech giants OpenAI and Microsoft for allegedly copying their journalism without permission to train AI systems.

The Seattle Times and Newsday filed a federal lawsuit in New York against OpenAI, alleging that its chatbot ChatGPT, as well as Microsoft's Copilot and Bing's AI features, use the newspapers' content without consent or compensation.

The suit claims that OpenAI and Microsoft scraped the newspapers' websites, including articles behind paywalls, to train their products. The companies allegedly reproduce passages from the reporting, closely paraphrase articles, and provide users with answers that reduce the need to visit the websites or buy subscriptions.

Seattle Times President Alan Fisco wrote in an internal email that the company 'feels strongly' about defending its content from being used without consent or compensation. He noted that the newspaper spends millions of dollars annually producing its reporting.