Seattle Times and Newsday sue OpenAI and Microsoft
The publishers say AI tools trained on journalism could undercut the news business, even as Microsoft says it was surprised by the lawsuit.
Two more U.S. news organizations have sued OpenAI and Microsoft over the alleged use of journalism to train AI systems. The Seattle Times and Newsday argue that the rise of generative AI could leave the news business “broken beyond repair” and threaten the publishers that produce the material these tools depend on.
The lawsuit adds to a widening legal fight over how AI companies use news content. It also carries an extra layer of tension: Microsoft and OpenAI have previously funded some Seattle Times journalism projects and fellowships, which makes this more than a straightforward clash between tech companies and the press. As IT-PUB News reports, the dispute lands in the middle of a broader argument over who benefits when AI systems are built on published reporting.
The publishers say AI tools rely on newsroom work
In the lawsuit, the two publications describe generative AI as a system that absorbs human-made reporting and then returns copies or close imitations of that work. The filing says products such as ChatGPT and CoPilot are marketed as content creators, but in reality depend on what it calls “rapacious” use of human-authored material for commercial purposes.
The complaint goes further, warning that AI could become “a snake eating its own tail” by damaging the organizations that produce the original journalism. That argument sits at the center of many disputes over AI training. Newsrooms want protection for their work, while AI companies continue to argue over access to the enormous volumes of text used to build their systems.
For the two publishers, this is not just a narrow copyright fight. It is also a question of whether journalism can remain financially viable if AI products are allowed to draw value from reporting without a clear agreement with the outlets that produced it.
The case joins a broader fight over AI training data
The Seattle Times and Newsday lawsuit follows an earlier case brought in 2023 by The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft over alleged copyright infringement. Since then, other publications have joined similar legal actions as the conflict has spread across the media industry.
That growing wave of lawsuits shows how unsettled the relationship between news publishers and AI companies still is. Publishers are increasingly challenging the idea that their work can be used as training material without permission or compensation, especially when the resulting products may compete with them for readers and revenue.
The new filing also underlines how much is at stake on both sides. Publishers fear AI systems could weaken the economic base that supports original reporting. AI developers, meanwhile, face legal pressure that could shape how future models are trained and what kind of content access they can count on.
Microsoft says the company was surprised
Microsoft responded cautiously to the filing. A spokesperson told GeekWire that the company was “surprised by the lawsuit” but said it is “always happy to sit down and explore solutions to this type of dispute.”
That leaves the door open to talks, even as the legal fight moves forward. Still, the case shows that tensions between AI firms and news publishers have not eased, despite earlier cooperation on journalism-related projects.
For readers, the lawsuit matters because it could affect how news content is used in the future and whether publishers can keep control over work that helps power AI tools. For the digital media business, it is another sign that the rules around training data, copyright and compensation are still being fought out in court.
