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November 30, 2024
Several major Canadian media companies have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI. They accuse the US company of using copyrighted content without permission to train its AI model, ChatGPT.
The plaintiffs, including Torstar, Postmedia, The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press, and CBC/Radio-Canada, invest hundreds of millions of dollars annually in creating news content in English and French. They argue that OpenAI systematically uses this content for commercial purposes without paying licensing fees. The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI "scraped" (i.e., retrieved and copied) content from the news media companies' websites, web-based applications, and/or third-party websites to develop and expand its GPT models. This was done without consent or permission.
The media companies emphasize that they support technological innovation, but compliance with existing laws and fair use of intellectual property are essential. They are seeking damages, a share of the profits OpenAI has generated through the use of their articles, and an injunction prohibiting OpenAI from further using their content.
The Canadian lawsuit joins a series of similar lawsuits against OpenAI. The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in late 2023, seeking billions of dollars in damages and the destruction of the AI models trained on their articles. Eight US publishers, including the New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune, have also filed suit. They claim that OpenAI and Microsoft "stole" millions of copyrighted articles.
The legal situation remains complex. A New York federal judge recently dismissed a lawsuit filed by news websites Raw Story and AlterNet against OpenAI. The judge sided with OpenAI's argument that the use of the content fell under the principle of "fair use" and that the plaintiffs could not demonstrate sufficient harm. The news websites can appeal this decision. The Intercept, however, achieved partial success in a similar case. Their lawsuit alleging violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was allowed to proceed. This lawsuit claims that OpenAI removed copyrighted information such as titles and author names without permission.
OpenAI has begun to make agreements with select media outlets. Journalism researcher Jeff Jarvis recently referred to these as "hush money." He suspects that the technology companies are trying to buy the publishers' silence in legal disputes and legislative processes with these partnerships. Jarvis warns that these exclusive partnerships could harm smaller, local, and independent publications that do not have access to AI technologies or cannot be found by AI applications. This could endanger the future of journalism.
OpenAI argues that its models are trained on publicly available data and that the use falls under the principle of "fair use." The company also emphasizes its collaboration with news publishers, offers opportunities for attribution and linking to their content in ChatGPT search, and gives publishers the option to prevent the use of their content.
The outcome of these and similar lawsuits will be groundbreaking for the future relationship between AI companies and media houses and will clarify how intellectual property can be protected in the age of artificial intelligence.
