A group of local news organizations, led by Emmerich Newspapers, has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI. The plaintiffs allege that both companies systematically used tens of thousands of copyrighted articles to train their artificial intelligence models without authorization or compensation.
The lawsuit claims that Microsoft and OpenAI generated billions of dollars in revenue using this content. The plaintiffs state that the defendants removed copyright management information, such as author names and publication details, from the articles before using them for training purposes.
According to the court filing, the AI systems have reproduced some of the news content almost verbatim. The plaintiffs argue that this practice violates the U.S. Copyright Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, further threatening the financial stability of local media outlets already facing declining advertising revenue.
The group of plaintiffs includes Ojai Media, Coopwood Publishing, Coopwood Magazine, Coopwood Media Group, and Coopwood Newspapers. Emmerich Newspapers operates primarily in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, often serving as the sole news provider in its markets.
The media organizations are seeking financial damages and a court injunction. They demand that Microsoft and OpenAI remove all copyrighted materials belonging to the plaintiffs from their AI training datasets, citing the companies' own efforts to protect their proprietary code and models.
