OpenAI and its major backer, Microsoft, are facing another legal battle in the United States, this time from the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR). The nonprofit organization, known for its publications Mother Jones and Reveal, has filed a lawsuit alleging that the tech giants have used its content without permission.
The lawsuit, announced on Thursday, accuses OpenAI and Microsoft of exploiting CIR’s work to enhance their artificial intelligence products without seeking authorization or offering compensation. “OpenAI and Microsoft started vacuuming up our stories to make their product more powerful, but they never asked for permission or offered compensation, unlike other organizations that license our material,” stated Monika Bauerlein, CEO of CIR. “This free rider behavior is not only unfair, it is a violation of copyright. The work of journalists, at CIR and everywhere, is valuable, and OpenAI and Microsoft know it.”
The lawsuit has been filed in federal court in New York and seeks damages as well as a court order mandating the removal of copyrighted material from OpenAI’s training datasets. These datasets are crucial for the functioning of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a chatbot that relies on vast amounts of information scraped from the internet, including news articles, to generate responses to user queries.
This latest legal action follows a series of similar claims against OpenAI and Microsoft by prominent news outlets, including The New York Times, The Intercept, New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, and the Denver Post. Additionally, well-known authors such as Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham, and George RR Martin have also filed lawsuits, accusing OpenAI of using their works without permission or compensation.
Despite the backlash from parts of the news industry, some media organizations have opted to collaborate with OpenAI. The Financial Times, News Corp, Politico, and Le Monde are among those that have signed agreements to share content and engage in AI development. Most recently, TIME announced a multi-year partnership with OpenAI to provide access to its century-old archives.
“Throughout our 101-year history, TIME has embraced innovation to ensure that the delivery of our trusted journalism evolves alongside technology,” said TIME CEO Mark Howard. “This partnership with OpenAI advances our mission to expand access to trusted information globally as we continue to embrace innovative new ways of bringing TIME’s journalism to audiences globally.”
OpenAI and Microsoft have yet to respond to requests for comment regarding the lawsuit filed by the Center for Investigative Reporting.
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