Lawsuit Alert: Eight U.S. Newspapers Take Legal Action Against OpenAI and Microsoft Over Copyright Issues
New York: A group of eight US newspapers has sued ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging the technology companies are “stealing millions” from copyrighted news articles without permission or payment to train their artificial intelligence chatbots. The media, and other papers filed the suit in federal court in New York on Tuesday. We have spent billions of dollars on our publications to gather information and report news, and we cannot allow OpenAI and Microsoft to expand the Big Tech playbook of stealing our work to build their own businesses at our expense,” it said in a written statement. . From Frank Pine, Executive Editor of MediaNews Group and Tribune Publishing.
Other newspapers that are part of the lawsuit are MediaNews Group’s Mercury News, Orange County Register and St. Paul Pioneer-Press and Tribune Publishing’s Orlando Sentinel and South Florida Sun Sentinel. All newspapers are owned by Alden Global Capital. Microsoft declined to comment Tuesday. OpenAI said in a statement that it is committed to supporting news organizations. “While we were not previously aware of Alden Global Capital’s concerns, we are actively engaged in constructive partnerships and conversations with many news organizations around the world to explore opportunities, discuss any concerns and provide solutions,” it states.
The lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft is the latest to land in federal court in Manhattan, where the companies are already fighting a series of other copyright lawsuits from the New York Times, other media outlets and bestselling authors such as John Grisham, Jodi Picault and George R.R. Martin. The companies also face another set of lawsuits in federal court in San Francisco. Tech companies have argued that taking publicly available Internet content to train their AI systems is protected by the “fair use” doctrine of American copyright law. In some cases, they have avoided potential legal challenges by paying organizations for that content.
The Associated Press agreed to a partnership with OpenAI last year in which the technology company would pay an undisclosed fee to license the AP’s archive of news stories. OpenAI has also signed licensing deals with other media companies, including news publishing giants Axel Springer in Germany and Prisa Media in Spain, France’s Le Monde newspaper, and most recently London-based Media.
