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Policypublished

Seattle Times and Newsday Sue OpenAI and Microsoft, Seeking Destruction of AI Models

The publishers say AI answers can substitute for visits and subscriptions. Their requested remedy would cover the articles, datasets and models that allegedly incorporate them.

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Seattle Times and Newsday Sue OpenAI and Microsoft, Seeking Destruction of AI Models
Seattle Times and Newsday Sue OpenAI and Microsoft, Seeking Destruction of AI Models

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The Seattle Times and Newsday are asking a Manhattan federal court to go far beyond removing copied articles: they want damages, and orders to impound or destroy training datasets and AI models that allegedly contain their journalism. The 38-page complaint accuses OpenAI and Microsoft of scraping the publishers’ websites, including paywalled material, and using those articles in systems that train and operate AI products. The newspapers say some reporting was reproduced verbatim, while other answers closely paraphrase it. Their central argument is that these responses can give users what they need without visiting the original sites or paying for subscriptions, weakening the business case for local news. OpenAI says its models are trained on publicly available data and rely on fair use, though it did not address this lawsuit specifically. Microsoft said it was surprised by the case and open to solutions involving local journalism. The requested remedy is the unusual part. It asks the court to address not just individual copies, but the underlying datasets and deployed models alleged to incorporate them. That puts the lawsuit alongside cases brought by The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and The Denver Post. Other publishers, including The Washington Post and News Corp., have chosen licensing deals with OpenAI instead. The key question now is whether copyright remedies can reach the training infrastructure and models built from disputed news content.

Story brief

3 key points

The lawsuit could test whether copyright remedies reach beyond copied articles to the datasets and deployed models built with them. Filed in Manhattan federal court, the 38-page complaint from The Seattle Times and Newsday seeks damages plus impoundment or destruction of material allegedly used by OpenAI and Microsoft, including paywalled journalism. The publishers say AI answers can reproduce or closely paraphrase...

  1. 01

    The complaint seeks orders affecting training datasets and AI models, not only removal of individual articles.

  2. 02

    The publishers allege paywalled content was scraped and sometimes reproduced verbatim without compensation.

  3. 03

    OpenAI says its models use publicly available data and rely on fair use, but did not address this case specifically.

The Seattle Times and Newsday have sued OpenAI and Microsoft in New York federal court, alleging copyright and trademark infringement. They are seeking destruction of copies of their work, training datasets and AI models that incorporate their material.

A claim about both the data and the answers

The 38-page complaint, filed in federal court in Manhattan, accuses the companies of infringing the newspapers’ copyrights and trademarks. It alleges that the companies scraped the publishers’ sites, including paywalled material, and put articles into datasets used to train and operate AI products.

The publishers also allege that the systems ingested and reproduced their journalism, sometimes verbatim, without compensation. The complaint says the products can reproduce or closely paraphrase reporting and answer questions in ways that reduce a user’s need to visit the newspapers’ sites or buy subscriptions.

The requested remedy reaches the deployed systems

The plaintiffs seek unspecified damages and court orders for the impoundment or destruction of datasets and models containing their articles. That request covers more than copies of the publishers’ work: it asks the court to address the training material and AI models alleged to incorporate it.

Microsoft said it was surprised by the suit and willing to explore solutions involving local journalism. Microsoft is a major OpenAI shareholder and partner, according to Newsday.

Publishers have chosen litigation and licensing

The case follows The New York Times’ 2023 copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft over newspaper articles used to train AI systems. The Chicago Tribune and The Denver Post are also identified as news organizations that have sued OpenAI.

Other publishers have taken a commercial route. The Washington Post and News Corp. chose deals with OpenAI instead of litigation, leaving publishers to pursue different responses to the same dispute over the use of their journalism in AI products.

Sources

  1. newsday.comNewsday sues OpenAI and Microsoft over copyright infringement
  2. firstpost.comUS newspapers sue OpenAI, Microsoft over alleged copyright infringement in AI training

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