A group of prominent Canadian news organizations, including CBC/Radio-Canada, Postmedia, Metroland, The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, and The Canadian Press, have filed a joint lawsuit against OpenAI in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. The lawsuit alleges copyright infringement, accusing OpenAI of using their articles without permission to train its ChatGPT AI model.
The news outlets are seeking punitive damages and payment of any profits OpenAI generated from using their content. This lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal challenges against OpenAI from news publishers, including The New York Times and others, over similar copyright concerns.
OpenAI spokesperson Jason Deutrom stated that the company works closely with news publishers, offering attribution, links to their content in ChatGPT search, and opt-out mechanisms. However, the Canadian news outlets claim OpenAI is "capitalizing and profiting" from their content without consent or compensation.
OpenAI's models were trained on publicly available data, and the company [is] "grounded in international copyright principles." - Jason Deutrom, OpenAI Spokesperson
Deutrom also told CBC that OpenAI's models were trained on publicly available data, and the company respects international copyright principles. The case highlights ongoing tensions between AI developers and content creators regarding fair use and copyright in the age of large language models.
