OpenAI Sued By Canadian News Publishers For Alleged Copyright Infringement

AI pioneer OpenAI has been hit with another lawsuit from newspaper publishers alleging copyright infringement.

The Associated Press reported that a coalition of Canadian news publishers, including The Canadian Press, Torstar, Globe and Mail, Postmedia and CBC/Radio-Canada, has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for using news content to train its ChatGPT generative artificial intelligence system.

It has been a busy year so far for the ChatGPT owner, and it has faced multiple lawsuits for alleged copyright infringement, as well as legal action from Elon Musk and a complaint from privacy rights group Noyb.

Copyright allegations

Now according to the AP, the Canadian publishers reportedly said in a joint statement on Friday that OpenAI regularly breaches copyright by scraping large amounts of content from Canadian media.

“OpenAI is capitalising and profiting from the use of this content, without getting permission or compensating content owners,” the statement reportedly said.

The publishers reportedly argue that OpenAI practices undermine the hundreds of millions of dollars invested in journalism, and that content is protected by copyright.

“News media companies welcome technological innovations. However, all participants must follow the law, and any use of intellectual property must be on fair terms,” the statement said.

OpenAI response

OpenAI said in a statement that its models are trained on publicly available data, and the firm has previously reached agreement with some publishers.

The AI firm also said publicly available data is “grounded in fair use and related international copyright principles that are fair for creators and support innovation.”

The company said it collaborates “closely with news publishers, including in the display, attribution and links to their content in ChatGPT search” and offers outlets “easy ways to opt-out should they so desire.”

Other lawsuits

In December 2023 The New York Times became the first major US media organisation to sue OpenAI (and its main investor Microsoft).

Shortly after that NYT lawsuit, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expressed his surprise, saying OpenAI’s artificial intelligence models didn’t need to train on the publisher’s data.

Then in February three US online news outlets sued OpenAI, alleging the AI pioneer used thousands of their articles to train its chatbots.

That complaint stemmed from The Intercept (an online American non-profit news organisation); Raw Story (an American progressive news website); and AlterNet (a left leaning news website in the US).

Then in May 2024 eight US newspaper publishers in California, Colorado, Illinois, Florida, Minnesota and New York alleged that Microsoft and OpenAI used millions of their articles without payment or permission to develop artificial intelligence models for ChatGPT and other AI products.

It should be noted however that OpenAI does have agreements with some newspaper publishers.

In July 2023, the Associated Press struck a licensing deal with OpenAI, and then German publishing giant Axel Springer also reached an agreement for an undisclosed amount.

OpenAI has also signed deals the Financial Times, enabling it to draw on the publishers’ content to improve AI models.

Canadian laws

Canada in 2023 had passed a law requiring Google and Meta to compensate news publishers for the use of their content, but has previously declined to say whether the Online News Act should apply to use by AI systems.

In response to that legislation, Meta pulled news from its platforms in Canada, while Google  reached a deal to pay $100 million Canadian ($71 million) to Canadian news outlets.

In response to Meta’s blocking of news, the Canadian government said it would halt advertising on Facebook and Instagram.