2LT International News

DENVER, Colorado: Eight U.S. newspapers are jointly suing ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Microsoft for “purloining millions” of copyrighted news articles without permission or payment to train their artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots.

This week, New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, Denver Post, and others filed the lawsuit in a New York federal court.

In a written statement, Frank Pine, executive editor for the MediaNews Group and Tribune Publishing, stated, “We have spent billions of dollars gathering information and reporting news at our publications, and we cannot allow OpenAI and Microsoft to expand the Big Tech playbook of stealing our work to build their own businesses at our expense.”

The lawsuit also includes MediaNews Group’s Mercury News, Orange County Register and St. Paul Pioneer-Press, and Tribune Publishing’s Orlando Sentinel and South Florida Sun Sentinel. All are owned by Alden Global Capital.

In response to the lawsuit, OpenAI said, “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.”

The lawsuit is the latest against OpenAI and Microsoft to be filed in Manhattan’s federal court.

The two companies are already facing copyright lawsuits from the New York Times, other media outlets, and bestselling authors, such as John Grisham, Jodi Picoult, and George R.R. Martin.

They also face another set of lawsuits in San Francisco’s federal court.