Canadian News Companies Sue ChatGPT Maker OpenAI Over Repeat Violation Of Copyright Laws

Media companies said, "Journalism is in the public interest. OpenAI using other companies' journalism for their own commercial gain is not. It's illegal."

OpenAI while responding to these have said that its models were trained using publicly accessible data.

Source : Unsplash/Jonathan Kemper

ChatGPT owner OpenAI is set to face lawsuits from five Canadian news companies for frequent breaches of copyright and online terms of use. The news companies have joined the long list of companies, artists, and authors who have filed lawsuits against OpenAI over accusations of using data to train its AI model. In a joint statement, Torstar, Postmedia, The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press, and CBC/Radio-Canada stated that OpenAI was collecting vast amounts of content to build its products without seeking permission or compensating the content creators.

The companies said, "Journalism is in the public interest. OpenAI using other companies' journalism for their own commercial gain is not. It's illegal."

On November 7, a federal judge in New York dismissed a lawsuit filed against OpenAI, which accused the company of improperly using articles from Raw Story and AlterNet. Meanwhile, in an 84-page claim submitted to Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice, five Canadian media companies are seeking damages from OpenAI and an injunction to stop the company from using their content without permission.

They added, "Rather than seek to obtain the information legally, OpenAI has elected to brazenly misappropriate the News Media Companies' valuable intellectual property and convert it for its own uses, including commercial uses, without consent or consideration. The News Media Companies have never received from OpenAI any form of consideration, including payment, in exchange for OpenAI's use of their Works."

OpenAI Responds

In its defense, OpenAI stated that its models were trained using publicly accessible data, in accordance with fair use and international copyright guidelines that it believes are fair to content creators. Reuters quoted an OpenAI spokesperson as saying, "We collaborate closely with news publishers, including in the display, attribution and links to their content in ChatGPT search, and offer them easy ways to opt out should they so desire."

The document from the Canadian news companies did not reference Microsoft. However, this month, billionaire Elon Musk broadened his lawsuit against OpenAI to include Microsoft, accusing the two companies of unlawfully attempting to dominate the generative AI market and push out competitors.