Canadian media accuses OpenAI of harvesting content to train models

• Canadian news companies have sued OpenAI, claiming the maker of ChatGPT is using their content without permission.
• The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI violated Canadian copyright laws and profited from it.
• OpenAI faces similar copyright infringement claims from other news outlets and authors.

Several leading Canadian news companies have come forward with allegations ChatGPT creator OpenAI deliberately copying their copyrighted content to train their large language models.

Media companies Torstar, Postmedia, The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press and CBC/Radio-Canada allege in a new lawsuit against OpenAI that the artificial intelligence startup “engaged in the ongoing, deliberate and unauthorized appropriation” of their news work.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in Ontario Superior Court and reviewed by Business Insider, accuses OpenAI of violating Canadian copyright laws and “unjust enrichment” at the expense of media companies.

In response to the lawsuit, an OpenAI representative told Business Insider in a statement that its models “are trained on publicly available data, are based on fair use principles and relevant international copyright principles that are fair to creators and support innovation.”

“We work closely with news publishers, including on the display, attribution and linking of their content in ChatGPT search, and offer easy ways for them to opt out if they wish,” the spokesperson said.

The news companies claimed in a joint statement that OpenAI “routinely violates copyright and online terms of use by removing large portions of content from Canadian media to help develop its products such as ChatGPT.”

“OpenAI profits from the use of this content without obtaining permission or compensating the content owners,” the statement said. “Journalism in the public interest. OpenAI’s use of other companies’ journalism for their own commercial gain is not. It’s illegal.”

The 84-page lawsuit seeks an undisclosed amount in damages to compensate the media companies for “misappropriation” of their works, as well as a permanent injunction to prevent OpenAI from engaging in “unlawful conduct.”

“Instead of obtaining the information legally, OpenAI chose to brazenly misappropriate the valuable intellectual property of media companies and convert it for its own use, including commercial use, without consent or consideration,” the lawsuit says.

A lawsuit follows a a flurry of other lawsuits have previously been filed by authors, artists, news outlets and computer programmers against AI companies such as OpenAI, alleging that their original work was used to train AI tools without their permission.

Other media organizations, including Axel Springer, the parent company of Business Insider, have partnered with OpenAI and licensed their work for use by the company.

The The New York Times sued OpenAI and his biggest sponsor Microsoft for copyright infringement at the end of last year.