A group of almost 400 local and regional newspapers has initiated a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing the tech giants of using their copyrighted news articles without permission to develop commercial artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot. The lawsuit alleges these companies copied and repurposed original journalistic content without compensation, violating copyright laws.
The legal action was filed by Platkin LLP, a law firm established this year by former New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin and his former team from the attorney general’s office. Platkin emphasized that the lawsuit aims to protect the work of local publications that produce original reporting on community affairs, such as city council meetings, local crime, obituaries, and small business openings, which AI systems cannot independently investigate or evaluate.
Matthew Platkin clarified that the lawsuit does not oppose AI innovation itself but insists that such advancements must adhere to copyright rules and provide fair protections for content creators.
This suit follows a previous lawsuit filed by The New York Times in December 2023 against Microsoft and OpenAI, which also accused the companies of unlawfully using its content to train AI models. At that time, OpenAI stated it respects the rights of content owners and is willing to collaborate on revenue opportunities stemming from AI technologies.
In related legal developments, a federal judge ordered OpenAI to hand over millions of anonymized ChatGPT logs to determine the extent to which its AI reproduced protected articles, underscoring ongoing concerns about AI systems’ treatment of copyrighted material. Both OpenAI and Microsoft are also facing copyright infringement claims from a group of authors alleging unauthorized use of their books for AI training, while OpenAI separately confronts a lawsuit from Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster, accusing it of scraping their content for AI model development.