News Outlets File Copyright Lawsuits Against OpenAI and Microsoft

Two major regional newspapers, The Seattle Times and Newsday, have launched a joint lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. As reported by TechCrunch, the publishers allege that the technology companies routinely ingested their news articles without permission or payment to build generative tools like ChatGPT and Copilot.

The publishers argue in their legal filing that uncompensated scraping threatens the financial survival of local reporting, warning that the journalism sector could end up permanently damaged. This action adds to an expanding wave of legal claims brought by media organizations, including an ongoing lawsuit by The New York Times. While several major media outlets have chosen to sign lucrative content licensing agreements with AI developers, others are choosing to push back in court to defend their intellectual property rights.

In response to the action, a Microsoft spokesperson told GeekWire that the company was surprised by the filing but remains open to discussing resolution options. The dispute is notably awkward given that OpenAI and Microsoft had previously funded journalism initiatives and fellowships at The Seattle Times. It remains to be seen whether these legal fights will force AI developers to establish universal compensation standards for written work, or if smaller regional newsrooms will simply be left behind while tech giants negotiate deals exclusively with massive global publishers.