The Seattle Times and Newsday have initiated legal action against OpenAI and Microsoft. The plaintiffs allege that the companies utilize their journalistic content to train artificial intelligence models without authorization.
The lawsuit claims that generative AI tools, specifically ChatGPT and CoPilot, function as consumers of human-authored material. According to the filing, these products generate derivative imitations of original content to meet commercial goals.
The plaintiffs argue that the current trajectory of AI development threatens the sustainability of the journalism industry. They suggest that these technologies could potentially destroy the organizations responsible for creating the training data.
This legal challenge follows a similar lawsuit filed by The New York Times in 2023. The Seattle Times case is distinct because the publication has previously received funding from both Microsoft and OpenAI for journalism projects and fellowships.
A representative for Microsoft stated that the company was surprised by the legal action. However, the spokesperson noted that Microsoft remains open to discussing potential solutions to resolve the ongoing dispute.