The News/Media Alliance applauds additional publications for filing a lawsuit today (April 30) in the Southern District of New York against Microsoft and OpenAI. Similar to the suit filed by The New York Times in December, the newspapers claim that the two tech companies have violated copyright law by using millions of the newspapers’ copyright protected articles in the training of their generative AI bots.
“We continue to support our members who are fighting against these companies that repurpose and monetize news content without permission or payment,” said Alliance President and CEO Danielle Coffey. “AI companies recognize the value of this content, evidenced by marketplace arrangements, and they rely on quality content to train their systems. The continued unconstrained use by AI companies of publishers’ valuable content without proper compensation is unlawful, and we support efforts to hold Big Tech accountable for what amounts to stealing on a massive scale. No company should be above the law.”
In a White Paper released in October, an analysis commissioned by the Alliance found that there is heavy reliance on journalistic and creative content by AI training models along with verbatim text from articles found in AI outputs.
Read the full lawsuit filing here.