Concerns for Local Journalism: 400 Newspapers Sue OpenAI and Microsoft
Dozens of U.S. newspaper publishers operating 400 local newspapers have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft for allegedly using their content without permission for AI training.
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Dozens of U.S. newspaper publishers operating 400 local newspapers have jointly filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. According to the lawsuit, the companies systematically used content from the newspapers for their AI models without permission.
Does training AI with content without the consent of the rights holders constitute a violation of copyright, or can providers rely on the Fair Use principle applicable in the U.S.? According to this principle, AI providers may use content if it has been legally acquired.
120 Lawsuits Against AI Operators
To what extent this applies when the trained AI tools serve commercial purposes is a matter of disagreement among the judges involved. Currently, around 120 copyright lawsuits against AI operators are reportedly pending in U.S. courts, as reported by FAZ. Among the most notable plaintiffs are The New York Times, CNN, and Thomson Reuters.
Now, nearly 50 publishers have joined forces for a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. The publishers operate around 400 local newspapers in the U.S. They accuse the developers of ChatGPT and Copilot of systematically and intentionally using content for AI training without permission.
AI Companies Allegedly Systematically Scraping Content
They allegedly "systematically and secretly" search the publishers' platforms to scrape content, even bypassing paywalls, as stated in the lawsuit published by Bloomberg Law. References to authors and copyright are removed, and the content is "memorized" by the AI model.
As a result, the content has reportedly been reproduced verbatim or nearly verbatim in response to user queries for years. Moreover, these processes are repeated continuously to keep the AI tools up to date.
Publishers: A Death Blow for Local Journalism
If the defendants are not held accountable for this "theft" of content, it threatens to be the "death blow for local journalism" in the U.S. The publishers are demanding compensation and an end to practices that they see as copyright violations.
The local newspapers believe that AI providers like OpenAI or Microsoft have generated an additional market value of hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars through the use of their content, as reported by FAZ. However, the publishers have not seen a cent of that.
OpenAI Denies Allegations
OpenAI has denied the allegations to Bloomberg. The models are "trained on publicly available data." Additionally, OpenAI once again cited the principle of fair use. However, OpenAI founder Sam Altman admitted during a hearing before the British House of Lords that training AI models without using copyrighted materials would not be possible.
