Nearly 400 American Newspapers Filed a Lawsuit Against OpenAI and Microsoft, Accusing Them of Content Theft
Nearly 400 American newspapers, jointly owned and managed by several publishers, have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing the companies of using journalistic materials without permission or compensation to train artificial intelligence systems, including ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot. Bloomberg reports on this.
The complaint states that generative AI models created using content from journalists and editorial teams have brought the companies billion-dollar market valuations, while publishers, according to them, have not received any financial compensation.
The plaintiffs claim that OpenAI and Microsoft allegedly systematically scanned newspaper websites, copied news, articles, and other copyrighted materials onto their servers, used them to train large language models, and also removed copyright information. Furthermore, as stated in the lawsuit, these materials were reproduced in the responses of AI systems to user queries.
Publishers believe that without accountability for AI developers regarding the use of journalistic materials, the current technological development could become a "death sentence for local journalism."
OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri stated that the company disagrees with the allegations. According to him, the company's models "promote innovation, are trained on publicly available data, and are based on the principle of fair use."
Former New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, whose law firm represents the plaintiffs, called the case the largest lawsuit initiated by local and regional newspapers.
He noted that previous lawsuits, including The New York Times case, were important in protecting copyright but did not consider the interests of local media.
According to him, local news remains a key source of information for most Americans and is an important component of democracy, while the current AI development business model, in his opinion, creates risks for the existence of local journalism.
The plaintiffs demand damages provided by U.S. law, as well as a court injunction to prohibit further use of their materials in violation of copyright and the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
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