Seattle Times, Newsday Sue OpenAI and Microsoft Over Use of News Articles to Train AI
AI-summarised brief · reviewed before publication
The Seattle Times and Newsday filed a federal lawsuit on Friday against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging the companies used the newspapers’ articles without permission to train and operate generative‑AI systems that can reproduce or closely paraphrase their reporting. The plaintiffs contend the AI products not only train on their content but also generate answers that bypass the publishers’ sites, threatening the subscription‑based business model that funds newsroom operations. They seek a court order to destroy any copies of their copyrighted works, as well as any training datasets or models that incorporate them. OpenAI defended its practices as fair use of publicly available data, while Microsoft expressed surprise at the suit but affirmed its respect for local journalism. The case could set precedent for how copyrighted news material is handled in AI training and remediation.
💡 Why It Matters
- · A ruling could force AI developers to purge specific copyrighted content from already‑trained models, reshaping the legal and technical landscape for generative AI and the future of paid journalism.