Seattle Times and Newsday are the latest publications to sue OpenAI and Microsoft — SkimNews
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- The Seattle Times and Newsday filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging the companies used their journalism to train AI without authorization.
- The suit warned generative AI could leave journalism 'broken beyond repair,' calling it 'a snake eating its own tail' that could 'destroy the very organizations' feeding it content.
- The complaint characterized ChatGPT and CoPilot as 'rapacious consumers' that 'devour' human-authored reporting and return derivative copies for commercial gain.
- The New York Times filed a similar copyright suit against OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023, with other publications following; this case extends that legal wave.
- The Seattle Times' lawsuit stands out because Microsoft and OpenAI have directly funded some of the outlet's journalism projects and fellowships.
- A Microsoft spokesperson told GeekWire the company is 'surprised by the lawsuit' but 'always happy to sit down and explore solutions to this type of dispute.'
Why it matters: The lawsuit deepens the mounting legal pressure on OpenAI and Microsoft over training-data practices, and the funder relationship sharpens the awkwardness: the same AI companies that bankrolled Seattle Times journalism projects now face the outlet in court over alleged content exploitation.
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