Seattle Times and Newsday sue OpenAI and Microsoft

Summary

The Seattle Times and Newsday have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that their journalistic content was used to train AI models. This move joins the wave of copyright lawsuits that began with the New York Times' case in 2023 and has been steadily growing.

Why it matters

This lawsuit carries a particularly contradictory dimension: Microsoft and OpenAI provide financial support to the Seattle Times' journalism projects and fellowships, meaning the plaintiffs are simultaneously benefiting from the defendants' funding. It also demonstrates that legal proceedings regarding AI training data are evolving from a single flagship case into a systematic legal battle across the news industry.

Highlights

• The lawsuit characterizes generative AI as a 'snake eating its own tail,' labeling ChatGPT and CoPilot as 'greedy consumers' of human-created content.
• Microsoft and OpenAI's financial support for the Seattle Times' journalism projects and fellowships creates a direct funding relationship with the plaintiff.
• A Microsoft spokesperson described the lawsuit as 'surprising' but stated that the company is 'always ready to sit at the table to explore solutions.'

Critical take

The article serves as a brief summary and lacks concrete details regarding legal claims, jurisdiction, or requested damages; while it offers vivid rhetoric, it remains devoid of essential legal analysis. Although the 'snake eating its own tail' metaphor is striking, it risks conflating copyright and derivative work issues with a broader narrative about the existence of journalism; yet the article never clearly establishes this distinction.