OpenAI is facing a fresh legal challenge as The Seattle Times and Newsday have filed a lawsuit alleging copyright infringement. The two American news outlets claim the company used their journalism as training data for its artificial intelligence models without securing permission, a practice that has drawn growing scrutiny from publishers across the media industry.
According to the complaint, the publishers allege that OpenAI’s systems frequently reproduce passages from their reporting when responding to user queries. The two outlets argue that this behaviour represents an unauthorised use of their work, undermining the value of the original journalism produced by their newsrooms.
Microsoft Named as Co-Defendant
The lawsuit does not target OpenAI alone. The Seattle Times and Newsday have also named Microsoft as a defendant, pointing to the fact that Copilot is built on OpenAI’s underlying technology. By including Microsoft, the publishers extend their legal claims to the products and services that rely on the same models at the centre of the dispute.
The action places both technology companies in a widening legal battle over how their artificial intelligence tools are trained and how they generate responses. The relationship between the two firms, with Microsoft integrating OpenAI’s capabilities into its own offerings, has become a recurring theme in litigation brought by content owners.
A Growing Wave of Legal Action
The Seattle Times and Newsday are the latest plaintiffs to bring OpenAI to court over similar allegations. Their case mirrors lawsuits already filed by The New York Times, Ziff Davis, Merriam-Webster, and Encyclopedia Britannica, all of which have raised concerns about the use of their material in AI training.
The two outlets also join a broader coalition of publishers pursuing legal remedies. Nearly 400 local newspapers recently took action against the two companies, signalling that the dispute now stretches well beyond the largest national titles to include regional and community journalism.
The lawsuits collectively centre on a single question that courts will increasingly be asked to resolve, namely whether training data drawn from published journalism can be used without permission and whether reproducing sections of that reporting constitutes infringement. As more publishers join the effort, the outcome could shape how AI developers source and handle copyrighted content going forward.
The Seattle Times and Newsday now add their names to the list of media organisations seeking accountability from OpenAI and Microsoft, with their case forming part of a broader confrontation between the news industry and leading artificial intelligence developers.
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