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Five major Canadian news outlets have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the company of illegally scraping their copyrighted content to train its AI models, such as ChatGPT, without seeking permission or providing compensation.
What’s the deal: Five major Canadian news outlets—Torstar (publisher of the Toronto Star), Postmedia (publisher of the National Post), The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press, and CBC/Radio-Canada—have jointly filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice. The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI illegally scraped their copyrighted content to train its AI models, including ChatGPT, without obtaining permission or providing compensation. The plaintiffs claim that OpenAI ignored technological safeguards such as paywalls, copyright disclaimers, and protocols designed to prevent unauthorized data scraping. They are seeking damages of up to $20,000 per article, which could amount to billions of dollars, along with an injunction to stop OpenAI from using their journalism to train its AI systems in the future.
In a joint statement, the news outlets said, “OpenAI is capitalizing and profiting from the use of this content without getting permission or compensating content owners. News media companies welcome technological innovations. However, all participants must follow the law, and any use of intellectual property must be on fair terms. OpenAI’s public statements that it is somehow fair or in the public interest for them to use other companies’ intellectual property for their own commercial gain is wrong. Journalism is in the public interest. OpenAI using other companies’ journalism for their own commercial gain is not. It’s illegal.”
OpenAi responds: In a brief statement, a representative of OpenAi said, “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.”
This all comes as other lawsuits against OpenAI from news outlets have emerged, challenging the company’s use of copyrighted content in training its AI models. In the United States, The New York Times has pursued legal action, alleging similar copyright violations related to the unauthorized use of its journalism. A coalition of authors, including prominent names like John Grisham and Jonathan Franzen, have also filed suits accusing OpenAI of exploiting their works without consent.
