Seattle Times and Newsday sue OpenAI and Microsoft over copyright infringement
Regional US newspapers Seattle Times and Newsday have filed a joint lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing them of using their articles without permission to train AI models. The outlets compared generative AI to a snake eating its own tail, warning it could destroy the news industry it feeds on.
Seattle Times and Newsday filed a joint lawsuit on Friday against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that the companies trained their AI models on the newspapers' copyrighted content without authorization. The two outlets described generative AI as "a snake eating its own tail," warning that the technology risks destroying both news organizations and the very content used to train it.
The lawsuit claims OpenAI and Microsoft "methodically scraped" news articles in a manner that bypasses paywalls. According to the filing, this practice has damaged the papers' business models by giving readers an AI-generated substitute for original journalism, which in turn reduces website traffic and digital advertising revenue.
The suit further alleges that the AI models produced hallucinations — false information incorrectly attributed to the two news outlets — and stripped copyright management information from the articles used in training.
Part of a wider legal trend
Seattle Times and Newsday join a growing number of news organizations pursuing legal action against AI companies. The New York Times set a precedent in 2023 with a similar lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, and CNN sued Perplexity earlier this year on comparable grounds.
Other publishers, including the Associated Press and Vox Media, have instead chosen to strike partnership deals with OpenAI, granting the company permission to train its models on their material.
