Chicago Tribune and seven other newspapers sue Microsoft and OpenAI

Eight newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, sued Microsoft and OpenAI on Tuesday, claiming that the tech giants stole their copyrighted articles to “fuel the commercialization of their artificial intelligence products, including ChatGPT and Copilot.”

The complaint said OpenAI and Microsoft “purloined” millions of articles from the newspapers without permission or payment to train their generative AI software and dramatically boost their businesses.

The lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of New York by Tribune Publishing's Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida Sun Sentinel, as well as MediaNews Group's St. Paul Pioneer-Press, Denver Post, Mercury News and the Orange County Register. All of the newspapers are owned by Alden Global Capital.

Although OpenAI, owner of ChatGPT, “purported at one time to be a non-profit organization, its recent $90 billion valuation underscores how that is no longer the case,” said the lawsuit. Microsoft’s Copilot, formerly known as Bing Chat, helped boost the tech giant’s market capitalization by a trillion dollars in the past year alone.

The publishers seek compensatory damages and restitution of an unspecified amount; stopping the software companies from infringement of their content; and a jury trial. They also demanded “destruction” of models and training sets that incorporate the publishers’ works.

AI is the latest threat to struggling newspapers. For more than two decades, media companies have been decimated by loss of subscribers and advertising revenue as news and readers moved online.

Since 2005, one-third of U.S. newspapers have folded and two-thirds of newspaper journalism jobs have been cut, according to a Northwestern University study released in November. Last year, the Washington Post and NPR let go of hundreds of journalists. Media layoffs have continued in 2024 with the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Business Insider, Time magazine and others slashing hundreds of jobs. Chicago Public Media, parent company of the Sun-Times, also laid off staff earlier this month.

The burgeoning threat of AI doesn’t harm just the newspaper industry, the lawsuit said. “It is a critical issue for civic life in America. Indeed, local news is the bedrock of democracy and its continued existence is put at risk by defendants’ actions.”

To create their generative AI products, Microsoft and OpenAI “scrape” newspapers’ content, copying it onto their systems to train their software, the lawsuit claimed. They then offer users content that is “identical to or a slightly masked version of the newspapers’ content.”

OpenAI founder Sam Altman previously said in testimony to the House of Lords, of the British Parliament, that his company couldn't make commercially viable generative AI products without using copyrighted material, according to the complaint.

Microsoft declined to comment.

OpenAI said in a statement, "While we were not previously aware of Alden Global Capital's concerns, we are actively engaged in constructive partnerships and conversations with many news organizations around the world to explore opportunities, discuss any concerns, and provide solutions.”

The lawsuit is the latest against OpenAI and Microsoft to land at Manhattan's federal court, where the companies are already battling a series of other copyright lawsuits from the New York Times, other media outlets and bestselling authors such as John Grisham, Jodi Picoult and George R.R. Martin. The companies also face another set of lawsuits in San Francisco's federal court.

Contributing: AP