Major Canadian news outlets sue OpenAI over alleged copyright infringement
A coalition of Canadian media companies, including the Toronto Star, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), and The Globe and Mail, has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging the tech company infringed on their copyrights and profited unjustly from their work. The lawsuit, filed on Friday, seeks monetary damages and a court order preventing OpenAI from using the outlets' content in the future.
Allegations of misappropriation
The media companies claim OpenAI used content scraped from their websites to train its large language models, such as the one powering ChatGPT, without consent or compensation. They argue this content represents the culmination of significant investments in time, effort, and money by their journalists and editorial teams.
In the filing, the companies accused OpenAI of choosing to "brazenly misappropriate" their intellectual property instead of seeking legal agreements. They further allege OpenAI has converted their content for commercial purposes, benefiting financially without offering any form of payment or acknowledgment.
A Broader pattern of lawsuits
This legal action adds to a growing number of copyright infringement lawsuits against OpenAI. Similar complaints have been filed by major entities, including The New York Times, New York Daily News, YouTube creators, and authors like comedian Sarah Silverman.
While OpenAI has entered licensing agreements with publishers such as The Associated Press and France’s Le Monde, the Canadian media companies claim they have never received compensation or had the opportunity to negotiate terms for the use of their content.
OpenAI’s defense
OpenAI has maintained that its models are trained on publicly available data and operate within the bounds of fair use and international copyright principles. A spokesperson for the company emphasized the value ChatGPT offers to millions of users worldwide, stating that it "improves daily lives, inspires creativity, and solves hard problems."
The spokesperson also highlighted OpenAI’s efforts to collaborate with news publishers, including offering attribution, linking to content within ChatGPT’s search features, and providing publishers the ability to opt out of their data being used in model training.
