AI
Two major newsrooms sue OpenAI and Microsoft over unlicensed use of journalism in AI training
Seattle Times and Newsday join growing roster of publishers fighting over whether AI companies can train models on copyrighted content without permission.
The Verge
The Seattle Times and Newsday have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, asserting that their published journalism was incorporated into AI model training without authorization. According to the plaintiffs, the companies' systems frequently reproduce excerpts from their original reporting when responding to user prompts.
A Widening Pattern of Legal Challenges#
The litigation adds two more news organizations to an expanding list of publishers and content creators challenging OpenAI's data practices. The New York Times, Ziff Davis, Merriam-Webster, and Encyclopedia Britannica have all pursued similar claims, alleging copyright infringement related to the use of their content in training large language models.
Core Dispute#
The central question across these cases remains consistent: whether AI developers can ethically and legally incorporate copyrighted material from published works—in this instance, journalism—into their training datasets without securing explicit permission or compensation from rights holders. The newsrooms contend that this practice violates copyright law and undermines the economic model that funds professional news gathering.
