The Seattle Times and Newsday have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft over allegations that the tech giants used their journalism to train artificial intelligence systems without permission. The legal action adds to a growing list of media organizations challenging the use of copyrighted content in AI development.
In their lawsuit, the two publications paint a dire picture of generative AI’s impact on journalism, warning that the industry could become “broken beyond repair.” They describe generative AI as “a snake eating its own tail,” arguing that it threatens to “destroy the very organizations” that produce the original content used to train these systems. The lawsuit characterizes ChatGPT and CoPilot as “rapacious consumers” of human-authored content, suggesting these AI tools devour original journalism only to deliver back copies and derivative imitations to achieve commercial objectives.
This legal challenge follows a precedent set by The New York Times, which sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023 over alleged copyright infringement. Since that initial lawsuit, additional publications have joined in taking legal action against the AI companies as the case has progressed through the courts.
The Seattle Times lawsuit carries particular irony, as Microsoft and OpenAI have previously provided financial support to the newspaper, funding some of its journalism projects and fellowships. This relationship makes the legal confrontation especially noteworthy, highlighting the tension between financial partnerships and intellectual property concerns in the media industry.
In response to the lawsuit, a Microsoft spokesperson told GeekWire that the company is “surprised by the lawsuit” but remains open to dialogue. The spokesperson indicated that Microsoft is “always happy to sit down and explore solutions to this type of dispute,” suggesting the company may be willing to negotiate rather than engage in protracted legal battles.
The lawsuit reflects broader concerns within the journalism industry about how AI companies obtain training data and whether current practices constitute copyright infringement. As generative AI continues to advance and produce increasingly sophisticated content, media organizations are grappling with fundamental questions about the value of their intellectual property and how to protect it in an era of machine learning.