OpenAI & Microsoft Sued: AI Used Paid Articles

OpenAI and Microsoft are facing a new lawsuit from American publications The Seattle Times and Newsday. The publishers accuse the companies of using paid articles to train their artificial intelligence systems without permission. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New York, claims that content protected by paid access was collected and used to train ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and the AI-powered Bing. Publishers state that AI tools can reproduce or closely paraphrase their journalistic texts. They argue that creating these materials requires significant financial investment, and should not be used without consent or compensation. The Seattle Times' CEO, Alan Fisco, emphasized the importance of protecting content that costs millions to produce annually. Publishers are demanding the destruction of unauthorized copies of materials and relevant AI training datasets or models. OpenAI denies these claims, stating it uses publicly available materials and believes this falls under fair use. Microsoft expressed surprise at the lawsuit but is open to finding solutions. This is not the first legal challenge for these companies regarding AI training and journalistic materials; they are also involved in a copyright case with The New York Times. This legal action highlights the ongoing debate about AI's use of copyrighted content and its impact on news organizations.