Seattle Times, Newsday Sue OpenAI, Microsoft, Alleging Copyright Infringement

On September 4, two prominent newspapers, The Seattle Times and Newsday, initiated legal action against OpenAI and Microsoft in a federal court in the Southern District of New York. The lawsuit alleges that the tech giants unlawfully copied the newspapers' content without authorization to train their artificial intelligence systems.

The plaintiffs claim that OpenAI and Microsoft scoured the websites of the newspapers, including subscription-restricted articles, and incorporated the material into datasets utilized for training and running products like ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Bing's AI functionalities. This action has raised concerns about the unauthorized use of copyrighted material in the development of AI technology.

The newspapers, hailing from Seattle and Long Island, New York, argue that the AI outputs from the tech companies can replicate segments of their reporting, closely paraphrase articles, and deliver answers to user queries that diminish the necessity to access their websites or purchase subscriptions. In a letter to employees, The Seattle Times' President and CEO, Alan Fisco, underscored the company's commitment to safeguarding its content, which incurs substantial annual production costs.

OpenAI's representative in San Francisco responded, asserting that the company's models are trained on openly accessible data and adhere to principles of fair use. Microsoft, based in Washington state, expressed surprise at the lawsuit in an emailed statement, emphasizing its appreciation for local journalism and willingness to engage in discussions to resolve disputes of this nature.

The Seattle Times and Newsday are seeking a court order mandating the destruction of any copies of their works, as well as the datasets or AI models that contain their content. This legal battle echoes a similar case filed by The New York Times in 2023, which also accused OpenAI and Microsoft of utilizing millions of newspaper articles without permission to train their AI models.

The ongoing lawsuit is just one of many brought by copyright holders against tech companies over alleged misuse of their material to train AI systems.