Eight prominent US newspapers, including The New York Daily News and The Chicago Tribune, have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft in a New York federal court. The newspapers, owned by Alden Global Capital, allege that the tech giants violated their copyright by using millions of their articles to train AI models like ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot without permission or compensation. The lawsuit accuses OpenAI and Microsoft of offering verbatim excerpts of full articles and attributing misleading or inaccurate reporting to the publications. Other newspapers involved in the suit include The Orlando Sentinel, The Sun Sentinel of Florida,

The San Jose Mercury News, The Denver Post, The Orange County Register, and The St. Paul Pioneer Press. OpenAI has stated that it takes great care in its product design process to support news organizations and has engaged in constructive partnerships with several outlets. However, this lawsuit reflects a growing tension between tech companies and traditional media regarding the use of copyrighted content for AI training purposes. This legal battle closely resembles a case filed by The New York Times in December, in which OpenAI defended its use of publicly available data for training AI models as fair use. Microsoft has declined to comment on the ongoing litigation.