Eight newspapers join legal backlash against OpenAI, Microsoft
Eight daily newspapers owned by Alden Global Capital, including the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News, sued OpenAI and Microsoft, joining the backlash to artificial-intelligence companies that have used copyrighted work to train their algorithms without compensating content owners, reports The Washington Post.
The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI and Microsoft used their news articles to train and run their AI tools, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
As AI companies improve their tools and push more people to use them, states The Post, “news publishers are becoming increasingly concerned that chatbots like ChatGPT and Google’s search bot will take their business, leading to even more news industry layoffs and bankruptcies.
“Some news organizations, such as Politico and its owner, Axel Springer, as well as the Financial Times, have signed deals with OpenAI to have some of their news content show up in answers to questions posed on ChatGPT. Others, such as the New York Times, have filed lawsuits. But Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and other AI companies insist that using news articles on the public web for training the underlying algorithms behind their AI tools qualifies as fair use — a concept in copyright law that allows re-purposing copyrighted work if it is substantially changed.”
More here.
