The Seattle Times and Newsday are the latest news organizations to sue OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming their AI systems are using journalism to train content-producing models.
The lawsuit argues that AI products like ChatGPT and CoPilot are 'rapacious consumers' of human-authored content, delivering back to the world copies and derivative imitations of that same original content they consumed to achieve their commercial objectives.
The lawsuit, filed in September 2026, is notable because Microsoft and OpenAI have funded some of the Seattle Times’ journalism projects and fellowships. A Microsoft spokesperson told GeekWire that the company is 'surprised by the lawsuit' but is 'always happy to sit down and explore solutions to this type of dispute.'
The lawsuit claims that generative AI is 'a snake eating its own tail' and could 'destroy the very organizations' that produce the content it’s trained on. It argues that AI is not a producer of content but a consumer, undermining the journalism industry and potentially breaking it 'beyond repair.'
The Seattle Times’ lawsuit follows a 2023 case filed by The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft over alleged copyright infringement. Other publications have also joined the legal battle as the case continues to unfold.
OpenAI and Microsoft have not commented on the specific allegations made by the Seattle Times and Newsday, but the lawsuit raises concerns about the ethical and legal implications of using journalism to train AI systems. The case highlights growing tensions between media organizations and tech companies over content ownership and AI training practices.
Source: techcrunch
