The Seattle Times and Newsday are the latest publications to sue OpenAI and Microsoft over the supposed use of their journalism to train AI. A lawsuit filed by the two news organizations argued that with the advent of AI, the journalism industry could become “broken beyond repair.” The lawsuit described generative AI as “a snake eating its own tail” that could “destroy the very organizations” that produce the content it’s trained on.
According to the lawsuit, AI products like ChatGPT and CoPilot are touted as producers of content, but in fact, they are 'rapacious consumers, devouring human-authored content and delivering back to the world copies and derivative imitations of that same original content they consumed to achieve their commercial objectives.' This practice, the lawsuit claims, offers readers an AI-generated alternative to the original articles, cutting traffic and digital advertising revenue.
The complaint also alleges that the AI models 'hallucinate,' attributing false information to the two outlets, and that copyright management information was stripped from articles. The lawsuit is particularly notable because Microsoft and OpenAI have funded some of The Seattle Times’ journalism projects and fellowships.
A Microsoft spokesperson expressed surprise at the lawsuit but indicated the company is 'always happy to sit down and explore solutions to this type of dispute.' The Seattle Times and Newsday join The New York Times, which sued in 2023, and approximately 400 local newspapers already in the litigation. Others, including AP and Vox Media, have chosen to license their archives to OpenAI instead.
The timing of the lawsuit is significant, as Microsoft asked the same court on the same day to reject the two theories this complaint rests on: lost licensing fees and market dilution. The allegation that the companies methodically scraped news articles in a way that bypasses paywalls is a claim that travels furthest, especially in the context of the EU’s general-purpose AI code, which commits signatories not to circumvent access restrictions, including subscription models and paywalls.
Questo articolo è stato scritto con l'assistenza dell'IA.
News Factory APP - notizie agentiche per potenziare il tuo SEO e AEO.