Microsoft, OpenAI Sued By Newspaper Publishers For Copyright Infringement Over Allegedly Generating 'Near-Verbatim Copies'

Eight U.S. newspaper publishers have filed a lawsuit against Microsoft Corp MSFT and OpenAI in a New York federal court.

What Happened: The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, reported CNBC.

The publishers allege that the tech companies have been using their articles without permission in generative artificial intelligence (AI) products and attributing inaccurate information to them.

The publishers, all owned by hedge fund Alden Global Capital, include the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, the Orlando Sentinel, the Sun Sentinel in Florida, The Mercury News in California, The Denver Post, The Orange County Register in California, and the Pioneer Press of Minnesota.

"The current GPT-4 LLM will output near-verbatim copies of significant portions of the publishers' works when prompted to do so," the complaint said.

The publishers claim that OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot have been using their copyrighted articles without permission or compensation. These AI tools are integrated into various Microsoft products, including the Windows operating system and the Bing search engine.

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"We take great care in our products and design process to support news organizations," an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement. "While we were not previously aware of Alden Global Capital's concerns, we are actively engaged in constructive partnerships and conversations with many news organizations around the world to explore opportunities, discuss any concerns, and provide solutions. Along with our news partners, we see immense potential for AI tools like ChatGPT to deepen publishers' relationships with readers and enhance the news experience."

Microsoft declined to comment on the lawsuit, according to the report.

Why It Matters: This lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal challenges against OpenAI and Microsoft over alleged copyright infringement. In December, a group of 11 nonfiction authors, including Pulitzer Prize winners, joined a lawsuit accusing the companies of using their writings without permission for training AI programs.

In January, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman denied the need for extensive training data from publishers like The New York Times amidst a copyright infringement lawsuit with the media company.

These legal battles come at a time when OpenAI is facing other challenges, including a lawsuit from Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk accusing the company of deviating from its original mission of creating responsible AI.

OpenAI’s response to these lawsuits has been to continue seeking partnerships with news organizations and other content providers to improve its AI models.

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