USA Today demands $250 million from OpenAI over copyright

USA Today and a group of 19 affiliated newspapers have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. They are seeking over $250 million in damages for alleged copyright infringement. The complaint claims that OpenAI unlawfully used their journalism to train ChatGPT by copying hundreds of thousands of articles without permission or payment.

The publishers also seek a permanent injunction against the infringement and other remedies related to the company's AI models. The lawsuit names seven OpenAI entities as defendants and involves USA Today and 18 affiliated publications. The publishers argue that OpenAI's actions deprived them of licensing revenue and allowed the company to create products that compete with established news organizations.

They also claim that OpenAI reproduced or repackaged copyrighted journalism in its AI system's responses, sometimes omitting information about the original publishers and copyright holders. The plaintiffs request damages exceeding $250 million, the recovery of profits from the alleged infringement, an order preventing further unauthorized use of their material, and the destruction of models and training datasets containing their copyrighted works. OpenAI has not yet responded to the specific allegations in the lawsuit.