• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, Yesterday

In addition to its copyright cases in the US, OpenAI is fighting a lawsuit by several Canadian publishers, who likewise allege that OpenAI scrapes their content without permission.  

An Ontario court will hold a hearing in September to determine jurisdiction. OpenAI argues that it not is located and does not do business in Ontario. 

But the plaintiffs, including Toronto Star Newspapers, The Globe and Mail, Canadian Press Enterprises, Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Postmedia Network and PNI Maritimes LP, will argue otherwise. 

As in the U.S., this is a complicated case and could drag on for years. The lawsuit filed last year accuses OpenAI of: 

“Infringing, authorizing, and/or inducing the infringement of” the plaintiffs' copyrights.

Engaging in “prohibited circumvention of technological protection measures that prescribed access to, and restricted copying of, the News Media Companies’ Works.” 

Breaching the Terms of Use  of the plaintiff’s websites. 

“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.

Of course, OpenAI has denied these allegations and seems prepared to continue fighting. 

It is conceivable that the Canadian firms will agree to a settlement and an agreement to compensate them in the future for using their content. But there is no hint of that yet.

Meanwhile, if all this was not enough, OpenAI now has a strange new entry to its crowded legal docket. An individual plaintiff named Joseph M. Wilson is suing, alleging that OpenAI has:

• “Undermined fundamental constitutional rights of American citizens,
• “Weaponized AI to suppress free speech, obstruct due process and manipulate public access to justice,
• “Betrayed the public trust by allowing foreign influences into America’s critical legal, infrastructure and information systems,
• “Created existential threats to national security, public safety, and civil society worldwide.”

Hey, that might be the most difficult case of all. It is on file with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.