• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, November 29, 2024

OpenAI, in addition to its other legal woes, has been sued by five Canadian news publishers for allegedly using their content to train its models in a case that could result in billions of dollars worth of damages.

The lawsuit was filed on Friday with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, Metroland Media Group Ltd., Postmedia Network Inc., PNI Maritimes LP, The Globe and Mail Inc., The Canadian Press, and Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

“Rather than seek to obtain the information legally, OpenAI has elected to brazenly misappropriate the News Media Companies’ valuable intellectual property and convert it for its own uses, including commercial uses, without consent or consideration,” the complaint states. 

It continues, “OpenAI has capitalized on the commercial success of its GPT models, building an expansive suite of GPT-based products and services, and raising significant capital—all without obtaining a valid license from any of the News Media Companies.”

The complaint adds, “A significant proportion of the Training Data used to train the GPT models was obtained by OpenAI using a process called 'scraping,' which involves programmatically visiting websites across the entirety of the Internet, locating the desired information, and extracting or copying it in a structured format for further use or analysis.”

The plaintiffs seek damages and permanent injunctive relief.  

OpenAI and Microsoft are currently fighting a cases filed against them by the New York Times, eight Alden Global Capital publications and the Center for Investigative Reporting. These cases have been merged. 

Last week, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York denied a motion by OpenAI to force the Times to disclose its own Gen AI usage as part of discovery in its lawsuit against OpenAI.

However, OpenAI won a victory earlier in the month when the same federal court dismissed a lawsuit filed against it by Raw Story Media and Alternet. Media, Inc.

In a case filed by The Intercept Media, Inc., U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff dismissed the case against Microsoft and allowed the suit against OpenAI to “proceed past the motion-to-dismiss stage.”

OpenAI says, “We collaborate closely with news publishers, including in the display, attribution and links to their content in ChatGPT search, and offer them easy ways to opt out should they so desire,” according to The Verge. 

The company has signed licensing deals with Financial Times, Dotdash Meredith, Hearst and several other publishers.