A major Canadian news organization has accused tech company OpenAI of potentially engaging in “strip-mining journalism” and unjustly enriching itself by using news articles to train its popular ChatGPT software. He sued for billions of dollars.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, seeks punitive damages, payment of a portion of the profits OpenAI made from the news outlet’s use of the news article, and the San Francisco-based company’s use of the news article. They are seeking an injunction to stop them from doing so. future.
“These artificial intelligence companies are cannibalizing proprietary content and free riding on the backs of news publishers who invest real money to hire real journalists producing real stories for real people. “We’re here to help,” said Paul Deegan, president of News Media Canada.
“While strip-mining journalism, they are essentially enriching themselves unfairly and illegally, to the detriment of publishers.”
The litigants include The Globe and Mail, Canadian Press, CBC, Toronto Star, Metroland Media and Postmedia. They are seeking damages of up to C$20,000 for each article used by OpenAI, suggesting a court victory could be worth billions of dollars.
“Defendants have engaged in the continued, systematic, and unauthorized misappropriation of Plaintiffs’ valuable news media works. Plaintiffs bring this lawsuit to prevent these illegal acts and seek redress. ” said the complaint filed by the media outlet.
“To obtain the large amounts of text data needed to develop GPT models, OpenAI intentionally “scrapes” (i.e., accesses and copies) content from news media companies’ websites. Then use that unique content to develop a GPT model. consent or permission. ”
Neither claim has been tested in court.
The lawsuit is the latest in a series of battles by Canadian media against American technology companies, including a bitter feud with Facebook’s parent company Meta. A number of US news organizations, including the New York Times, are also suing OpenAI.
OpenAI, which is worth more than $150 billion, already has licensing deals with a handful of news organizations, including The Associated Press, NewsCorp and Condé Nast.
The company did not respond to requests for comment.
