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🇸🇬 Singapore /Technology

Seattle Times and Newsday sue OpenAI and Microsoft over alleged copyright infringement

From CNA · () English

Translated from English and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Newswire Named sources In the courts
  • The Seattle Times and Newsday sued OpenAI and Microsoft in federal court, alleging that the companies used their journalism without permission to train AI systems.
  • The newspapers say the companies scraped content, including paywalled articles, and that AI products can reproduce or closely paraphrase their reporting.
  • They are seeking the destruction of copies, training datasets and AI models that incorporate their works, adding to broader copyright litigation against AI companies.

The Seattle Times and Newsday have taken OpenAI and Microsoft to federal court, accusing the technology companies of copying their journalism without permission to train artificial intelligence systems.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges that the companies scraped the newspapers' websites, including content behind paywalls. The material was allegedly incorporated into datasets used to train and operate ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and AI features in Bing.

The newspapers, based in Seattle and Long Island, New York, say the products can reproduce passages from their reporting, closely paraphrase articles and answer users' questions in ways that reduce the need to visit their websites or purchase subscriptions.

We feel strongly that we must defend our content, which we spend millions of dollars a year to produce, from being used without our consent or compensation.

· Alan FiscoThe Seattle Times president and CEO explained the newspaper's decision to sue.

Seattle Times President and CEO Alan Fisco told employees, "We feel strongly that we must defend our content, which we spend millions of dollars a year to produce, from being used without our consent or compensation." OpenAI said its models are trained on publicly available data and grounded in fair use, while declining to comment specifically on the case. Microsoft said it was surprised by the lawsuit but recognized the importance of local journalism and was willing to explore solutions.

The newspapers are seeking an order requiring the destruction of copies of their works, along with training datasets or AI models that incorporate them. The case echoes a 2023 lawsuit by The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft. That case remains ongoing, alongside dozens of other claims by copyright holders who say technology companies misused their material to train AI systems.

While we're surprised by the lawsuit, we appreciate the importance of local journalism and we're always happy to sit down and explore solutions to this type of dispute.

· Microsoft spokespersonMicrosoft responded to the newspapers' lawsuit.
About this summary

Originally published by CNA in English. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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