On September 5, the Seattle Times and Newsday filed a federal lawsuit accusing OpenAI and Microsoft of scraping their websites — including paywalled content — to train ChatGPT, Copilot, and Bing's AI features without permission or payment.
The suit argues that AI products are destroying the journalism business by reproducing articles and reducing the need for readers to visit news sites or buy subscriptions. The complaint calls generative AI a system that could leave the industry broken beyond repair.
The irony buried in the filing: Microsoft and OpenAI have previously funded journalism fellowships and projects at the Seattle Times. Microsoft called the lawsuit a surprise and said it's happy to sit down and explore solutions. OpenAI said its models are trained on publicly available data under fair use.
Why this lawsuit is different: The New York Times sued OpenAI in 2023, launching a wave of copyright cases against AI companies. But the Seattle Times case exposes a new tension: news organizations that took tech money to survive are now suing the same companies for using their content. The newspapers are seeking unspecified damages and court orders to destroy any AI models or datasets that include their work.
What's at stake: If the courts rule that training AI on published journalism requires licenses, every AI company will need to pay or delete. If fair use wins, the cost of making words just dropped to zero for anyone with a chatbot.