In a legal twist worthy of its own headline, OpenAI and Microsoft are facing a lawsuit from the Seattle Times and Newsday. The newspapers claim that the tech titans have been sneaking past paywalls to use their articles for AI training without so much as a by-your-leave!
Filed in the Southern District of New York, the lawsuit alleges that these companies scraped protected content to feed their AI models like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot. The chatbots, it seems, have been a bit too good at mimicking the prose of hardworking journalists, reproducing entire passages and closely paraphrasing their work.
The newspapers are demanding that any existing copies of their content, along with the training datasets and AI models that used them, be destroyed. Seattle Times president Alan Fisco emphasised the importance of protecting their expensive-to-produce content from unauthorised use.
OpenAI insists that they only use publicly available materials under fair use, while Microsoft expressed surprise at the lawsuit but is open to discussions with the publishers. This isn’t the first time these tech companies have faced legal challenges over their training data. They’re already in a courtroom tango with the New York Times over similar issues.
Adding a political twist, the Trump administration filed a Statement of Interest, arguing that siding with the New York Times could harm local newsrooms and national security by stalling AI progress. It’s a courtroom drama that blends copyright law, journalism, and cutting-edge AI technology into a complex narrative. Stay tuned for the next chapter!
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