The media outlets Raw Story, Alternet and The Intercept filed lawsuits against OpenAI for copyright infringement. They claimed that OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot used copyrighted works without proper credit. The companies are seeking damages and the removal of copyrighted articles from training sets. The Intercept also sued Microsoft for using the same copyrighted information in its Bing chatbot.
John Byrne, CEO of Raw Story, criticized Big Tech’s attempts to monetize others’ work and called for news organizations to fight back. OpenAI and Microsoft did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but in the past, OpenAI expressed interest in working with publishers to benefit from AI.
The lawsuits follow The New York Times’ similar suit against OpenAI and Microsoft. Generative AI has raised concerns about the use of copyrighted works to train algorithms and recreate artistic performances. Hollywood unions and authors have also expressed concerns.
The three digital publications suing OpenAI emphasized the importance of protecting copyrighted works under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Raw Story’s publisher, Roxanne Cooper, stated that OpenAI taught ChatGPT to ignore journalists’ copyrights.
