Seattle Times and Newsday are the latest publications to sue OpenAI

Two more news organizations are suing OpenAI and Microsoft over the supposed use of their journalism to train AI. Seattle Times and Newsday are the latest publications to sue OpenAI and Microsoft. A lawsuit filed by The Seattle Times and Newsday argued that with the advent of AI, the journalism industry could become “broken beyond repair.” The lawsuit described generative AI as “a snake eating its own tail” that could “destroy the very organizations” that produce the content it’s trained on.

“AI products like ChatGPT and CoPilot are touted as producers of content, but in fact they are rapacious consumers, devouring human-authored content and delivering back to the world copies and derivative imitations of that same original content they consumed to achieve their commercial objectives,” the lawsuit said. Back in 2023, The New York Times sued OpenAI and its partner/investor Microsoft over alleged copyright infringement; other publications have followed suit as the case continued. The Seattle Times’ lawsuit is particularly notable because Microsoft and OpenAI have funded some of the organization’s journalism projects and fellowships.

A Microsoft spokesperson told GeekWire that the company is “surprised by the lawsuit” but is “always happy to sit down and explore solutions to this type of dispute.” Topics AI, Media & Entertainment, Microsoft, Newsday, OpenAI October 13 – 15 San Francisco Don’t miss out. The startup community will gather to answer a pivotal question: How do you build sustainably in the AI era? REGISTER NOW Newsletters See More.

The Seattle Times and Newsday accused the two AI giants of using their content without permission. Two more news organizations sue OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement.

News AI Two more news organizations sue OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement The Seattle Times and Newsday accused the two AI giants of using their content without permission. The two news organizations who filed the legal action on Friday called generative AI "a snake eating its own tail" that would destroy the news organizations and content that it trained on.

In the lawsuit, Seattle Times and Newsday alleged that OpenAI and Microsoft were "methodically scraping" news articles in a way that bypasses paywalls. The news organizations claimed that this method of training AI models has harmed their business models, giving users an AI-generated alternative to news articles and reducing the traffic and digital advertising revenue for Seattle Times and Newsday.

The lawsuit also alleged that these AI models would create hallucinations attributing false information to the news outlets and remove copyright management information on articles. Seattle Times and Newsday join a growing list of news organizations that have started a legal battle against AI companies.

In 2023, the New York Times set the precedent by filing a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft for similar reasons. The trend has continued, with CNN suing Perplexity for copyright infringement earlier this year.

Other news organizations like AP and Vox Media have taken a different route and partnered with OpenAI, allowing the AI giant to train models on their material.