Center of Investigative Reporting Sues OpenAI Over Copyright Violation
OpenAI and Microsoft have been sued by another news organization for using articles to train their AI system, this time by the Center of Investigative Reporting.
In a lawsuit filed in New York district court, the nonprofit newsroom, which produces Mother Jones and Reveal, alleges the Sam Altman-led firm “copied, used, abridged, and displayed” the Center of Investigative Reporting’s content without consent or compensation in violation of copyright laws. It stresses that users of AI tools from OpenAI and Microsoft can obtain variants of copyright-protected material, undercutting the market for articles from the organization.
The lawsuit is at least the fifth from a news organization against OpenAI over novel copyright issues associated with training its AI system. It expands a multifront legal battle that may far-reaching implications on the news publishing industry, with the financial viability of media in a landscape in which readers can bypass direct sources in favor of search results generated by AI tools at stake.
Unlike other organization that license material, CIR chief executive Monika Bauerlein said OpenAI and Microsoft “started vacuuming up our stories to make their product more powerful” without permission or compensation. She added, “This free rider behavior is not only unfair, it is a violation of copyright.”
More to come.
