This litigation mirrors mounting pressure from media organizations like The New York Times, Ziff Davis, and Merriam-Webster, all of whom allege their intellectual property was misappropriated. By naming Microsoft as a co-defendant, the plaintiffs are targeting the infrastructure behind Copilot, which relies heavily on OpenAI’s technology. These two outlets are aligning themselves with a broader coalition of nearly 400 local newspapers currently pursuing similar legal action.
Seattle Times and Newsday Join Legal Offensive Against OpenAI
The Seattle Times and Newsday have launched a federal copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming the tech giants harvested their proprietary reporting to train AI models without authorization. The publishers argue that these systems now siphon away vital traffic and subscription revenue by reproducing their journalism verbatim for users.
Beyond seeking damages, the publishers are demanding the destruction of any training datasets and AI models that incorporate their copyrighted content. The core of their argument rests on the impact of chatbots on the digital ecosystem; by surfacing reporting directly within an AI interface, the companies are effectively bypassing the publishers' websites, thereby eroding the economic foundation required to sustain independent news gathering.
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