The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in December over copyright infringement. Now eight more US newspapers are suing.

As reported by Yahoo News via Reuters (US newspapers sue OpenAI for copyright infringement over AI training, written by Blake Brittain and available here), a group of newspapers, including the New York Daily News and Chicago Tribune, sued Microsoft and OpenAI in New York federal court on Tuesday, accusing them of misusing reporters’ work to train their generative artificial-intelligence systems.

The eight newspapers, owned by investment firm Alden Global Capital’s MediaNews Group, said in the lawsuit that the companies unlawfully copied millions of their articles to train AI products, including Microsoft’s Copilot and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

A lawyer for the MediaNews publications, Steven Lieberman, told Reuters that OpenAI owed its runaway success to the works of others. The defendants know they have to pay for computers, chips, and employee salaries, but “think somehow they can get away with taking content” without permission or payment, he said.

The lawsuit said Microsoft and OpenAI’s systems reproduce the newspapers’ copyrighted content “verbatim” when prompted. It said ChatGPT also “hallucinates” articles attributed to the newspapers that harm their reputations, including a fake Denver Post article touting smoking as an asthma cure and a bogus Chicago Tribune recommendation for an infant lounger that was recalled after being linked to child deaths.

In addition to the New York Daily News and Chicago Tribune, the plaintiffs also include the Orlando Sentinel, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, San Jose Mercury News, Orange County Register and Twin Cities Pioneer Press. They asked the court for unspecified monetary damages and an order blocking any further infringement.

It sure seems like the roadblocks are piling up. People are saying there’s not enough data for AI models, they take too much power, they’re leading to too many fraudulent claims in class actions, they’re beginning to overrun research literature, and they’re infringing on copyrights. Yet, generative AI keeps rolling along. Is Chip Diller really yelling “all is well” in the face of the storming mob, or will AI companies like OpenAI and Microsoft spend enough money to make sure all is actually well? We’ll see. So far, it’s great for the lawyers! 😀

So, what do you think? Will there be any more US newspapers that are suing OpenAI and Microsoft? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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