US newspapers sue OpenAI and Microsoft for ‘stealing millions of articles’ without permission

Microsoft and Open AI in turmoil. Eight American newspapers, including the Chicago Tribunefiled a complaint on Tuesday, April 30, against the creator of ChatGPT and its main investor, accusing the companies of having violated their copyrights to create the technology used in artificial intelligence (AI) assistants.“This lawsuit arises from the fact that [les entreprises] stole millions of copyrighted articles from publishers, without permission or payment, in order to market their generative artificial intelligence products, including ChatGPT and Copilot [de Microsoft]“explains the complaint filed with a court in New York.

The plaintiffs – New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, Sun Sentinel of Florida, San Jose Mercury News, Denver Post, Orange County Register And St. Paul Pioneer Press – belong to Alden Global Capitala Florida-based hedge fund that created the second-largest U.S. newspaper group behind Gannetowner of USA Today. According to their lawyers, “this trial will demonstrate that the defendants must both obtain the consent of publishers to use their content and compensate them fairly for this use”.

They also criticize AI assistants for offering excerpts from articles and attributing misleading or inaccurate information to publications in some cases. Many authors, artists and information sites accuse OpenAI and its rivals of copyright infringement in the race for generative AI (production of texts, images, etc., upon simple request in everyday language), which requires mountains of data. At the end of December, the New York Times had initiated proceedings against OpenAI and Microsoft.