Seattle Times, Newsday sue OpenAI, Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement - Reuters

Two major U.S. newspapers have filed lawsuits alleging that artificial‑intelligence firms have infringed their copyrights. The Seattle Times and Newsday each filed separate complaints in federal court, naming OpenAI and Microsoft as defendants.

The complaints contend that the companies used the newspapers’ articles to train large‑language‑model systems without obtaining permission. According to the filings, the AI tools subsequently reproduced portions of the newspapers’ reporting, which the plaintiffs argue constitutes unauthorized copying of protected content.

OpenAI, the developer of the ChatGPT platform, and Microsoft, which has integrated OpenAI’s technology into its products, are accused of benefiting commercially from the alleged misuse of the newspapers’ journalism. The lawsuits claim that the defendants’ actions violate U.S. copyright law and seek damages as well as injunctive relief to prevent further use of the copyrighted material.

Both lawsuits assert that the plaintiffs’ articles were scraped from publicly accessible websites and incorporated into the training data sets that power the AI models. The filings allege that the defendants failed to provide any licensing or compensation for the use of the copyrighted works.

The cases are expected to proceed through the federal courts, where the parties may seek summary judgment or negotiate settlements. The outcomes could have broader implications for how AI developers source and use copyrighted content in training their systems.