Two major US news outlets, The Seattle Times and Newsday, have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, seeking the destruction of AI models built using their journalism without permission. The publishers allege that the tech companies used their reporting as training data and that the chatbots often reproduce passages from their articles in response to user prompts.
Microsoft was named as a defendant alongside OpenAI because its Copilot assistant relies on OpenAI's technology. The lawsuit joins a growing wave of legal actions against the two companies, including a recent suit by nearly 400 local newspapers as well as ongoing cases brought by The New York Times, Ziff Davis, Merriam-Webster, and Encyclopedia Britannica. The publishers argue that by answering queries directly, the chatbots reduce traffic to news websites and deprive publishers of critical subscription revenue.
As part of the suit, The Seattle Times and Newsday are asking the court to order the destruction of any copies of their works held by the companies, along with the training datasets and AI models that incorporate their reporting. Neither OpenAI nor Microsoft immediately responded to requests for comment.