Newsday sues OpenAI and Microsoft over copyright infringement

Newsday and The Seattle Times have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that the tech companies’ artificial intelligence products infringe on the news organizations’ copyrights and trademarks.

The 38-page lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Manhattan, alleges that the tech companies’ AI models violate the news organizations' copyrights by ingesting their journalism and reproducing it — often verbatim — without compensation.

"Like a snake eating its own tail, GenAI that is trained on painstakingly researched, expensive-to-produce content threatens to destroy the very news organizations by competing directly with them through AI-generated substitutive content," the complaint reads. "If Defendants are allowed to succeed, independent journalism of the kind Plaintiffs produce will struggle to survive."

Representatives for OpenAI, Microsoft and The Seattle Times did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. Attorneys for the news organizations also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"While both Newsday and The Seattle Times support responsible AI innovation, it is also imperative that we protect the significant investments we have made in our respective unique content," Tara Rogers, a spokesperson for Newsday, said in a statement.

The growing ubiquity of AI chatbots, which are trained on massive batches of text, including news articles, has caused alarm among media outlets across the country.

Chatbots are able to quickly regurgitate information produced by news outlets, allowing users to avoid purchasing a subscription, visiting a website or even clicking a link — all ways that media companies bring in revenue.

Newsday and The Seattle Times, two privately owned news organizations on opposite sides of the country, are just the latest publishers to join a flurry of litigation against AI companies.

Many major news organizations, including The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune and The Denver Post, have filed suit against OpenAI. Other news organizations — such as The Washington Post and News Corp., which owns The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post — have instead opted to make deals with the company.

San Francisco-based OpenAI is valued at roughly $850 billion, and the company is preparing to go public next year or sooner, seeking a $1 trillion valuation, according to media reports. Microsoft, which is based in the Seattle area, is a major OpenAI shareholder and partner.

The news organizations’ lawsuit is seeking an unspecified amount of damages, as well as court orders for the "impoundment and/or destruction" of data sets and AI models that include their articles.

"There is no justification for Defendants’ wholesale taking and use of Plaintiffs’ content without payment or permission," the complaint reads.