Argentinian and Brazilian Media Sue OpenAI, Microsoft, and Meta Over Content Use

Argentinian newspaper Perfil has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging the unauthorized use of its journalistic content to train artificial intelligence models. Perfil's digital director, Agustino Fontevecchia, stated that the lawsuit, filed in Argentina's civil and commercial courts, seeks damages for the improper use and commercial exploitation of their content.

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They are true parasites because they take the content and squeeze it; in the long run, they will kill the journalistic companies that produce them.

This marks the first such lawsuit by a Spanish-speaking media outlet over alleged intellectual property appropriation and unfair competition. Fontevecchia explained that the legal action is inspired by similar claims made by The New York Times and Brazil's Folha de São Paulo against the tech giants. Perfil argues that these companies act as "parasites," extracting value from journalistic content without proper compensation, which could ultimately harm media organizations.

The lawsuit is supported by technical and IT expertise, asserting that mass copying and incorporation of news content into AI systems for commercial purposes differs significantly from individual user access. Perfil contends that companies like OpenAI and Microsoft have been systematically scraping the web, downloading content to train their AI models, much of which is protected by copyright and intellectual property laws.

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These companies have spent years crawling the web, downloading all the content they come across, storing it and then training their artificial intelligence models, which in many cases are protected by copyright and/or intellectual property.

Perfil is seeking an agreement similar to those OpenAI has made with other media groups like Prisa, the Financial Times, and international news agencies. "We are looking for them to remunerate us correctly for our work, which has cost us and continues to cost us so much," Fontevecchia added. The lawsuit follows a failed mediation attempt, during which OpenAI and Microsoft presented arguments to justify their practices. The Brazilian daily Folha de São Paulo has also initiated legal action against the tech companies.

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We are looking for them to remunerate us correctly for our work, which has cost us and continues to cost us so much.