Seattle Times, Newsday sue OpenAI, Microsoft over AI training data

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, contends that the AI products can reproduce passages from the newspapers' reporting and provide answers that diminish the need for users to visit their websites or purchase subscriptions. Seattle Times President and CEO Alan Fisco emphasized the importance of defending their content, which costs millions annually to produce, from unauthorized use.

OpenAI, based in San Francisco, stated that its models are trained on publicly available data and are grounded in fair use, declining to comment specifically on the lawsuit. A Microsoft spokesperson expressed surprise but acknowledged the value of local journalism and openness to exploring dispute resolution.

The plaintiffs are seeking a court order for the destruction of any copies of their works and the training datasets or AI models that incorporate them. This legal action follows a similar case initiated by The New York Times in 2023, which also accused OpenAI and Microsoft of using millions of newspaper articles without permission for AI training. That case remains ongoing, and it is one of many lawsuits filed by copyright holders against AI companies for alleged misuse of their material.