The news organizations The Intercept, Raw Story, and AlterNet have sued OpenAI and Microsoft for alleged copyright infringement during the training of their AI models.
The three lawsuits, filed in the Southern District of New York, accuse ChatGPT of reproducing journalistic works without proper attribution. The plaintiffs argue that if ChatGPT had been trained with data that included copyright information, “it would have learned to communicate such information by providing answers”.
Raw Story and AlterNet argue in their lawsuit that OpenAI and Microsoft knew that ChatGPT “would be less popular and generate less revenue if users believed that ChatGPT’s responses violated third-party copyright”. Both companies provide legal coverage to paying customers against potential lawsuits for the use of Copilot or ChatGPT Enterprise.
The lawsuits also point out that OpenAI provides an exclusion system for website owners to prevent their content from being tracked. This point reinforces the idea that OpenAI and Microsoft are fully aware of possible copyright infringement.
Previous cases in California involved American comedian Sarah Silverman and other authors, who claimed that OpenAI intentionally removed copyright information when training their models. Although a judge dismissed the lawsuit, the central argument of copyright infringement persists.
In December, The New York Times also sued OpenAI and Microsoft alleging that ChatGPT faithfully reproduces their journalistic work. In addition, Getty Images and Universal Music Group have taken legal action against Stability AI and Anthropic, respectively, for the use of protected images and lyrics without attribution, highlighting a growing legal scrutiny in the field of AI and copyright.
