The Center for Investigative Reporting has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing them of violating privacy laws in their use of artificial intelligence.

• On Thursday, OpenAI and Microsoft were sued in federal court by the Center for Investigative Reporting for copyright infringement.
• OpenAI was accused by the CIR of using, abridging, and displaying its valuable content without permission or compensation.
• Time magazine and OpenAI have struck a "multi-year content deal" that grants OpenAI access to current and historical articles from over a century of Time's existence.

OpenAI has become a formidable adversary for the news industry in its quest to combat the use of artificial intelligence.

On Thursday, the Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit newsroom established in the United States, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its primary financier in federal court, accusing them of copyright infringement. This legal action follows similar suits brought by other publications, including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and New York Daily News.

In the lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York, CIR claimed that OpenAI had copied, used, shortened, and displayed CIR's valuable content without permission or compensation.

The ChatGPT chatbot, which was made public in late 2022, has been using web crawling to provide answers to user queries, frequently relying on copy directly from news stories.

"The plaintiffs stated in the lawsuit that when they filled their training sets with journalism works, Defendants had the option to respect journalism or not. However, they chose not to respect it."

On Thursday, in a press release, Monika Bauerlein, CEO of the nonprofit, accused the defendants of engaging in "free rider behavior."

Bauerlein stated that unlike other organizations that license their material, OpenAI and Microsoft did not ask for permission or offer compensation while collecting our stories to enhance their product's power.

OpenAI was accused by the CIR of training ChatGPT without permission and without respecting copyright laws.

The group is seeking damages, including actual damages and profits of the defendants, or statutory damages of at least $750 per infringed work and $2,500 per DMCA violation.

OpenAI and Microsoft didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

As AI-generated content becomes more common, many publications are intensely focusing on safeguarding their businesses due to the challenges of generating sufficient revenue from advertising and subscriptions to cover their costly news operations.

In December, Microsoft and OpenAI were sued by The New York Times for intellectual property violations related to ChatGPT training data. The Times claimed it seeks to hold the two companies accountable for "billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages" due to the "unlawful copying and use of the Times's uniquely valuable works," as stated in a filing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. OpenAI disputed the Times' portrayal of the situation.

In April, the Chicago Tribune, like seven other newspapers, took a similar course of action.

In 2021, a group of notable American authors, including Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham, George R.R. Martin, and Jodi Picoult, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the company of copyright infringement for using their work to train ChatGPT.

Some news organizations are joining forces with OpenAI instead of gearing up for a fight, as announced in a "multi-year content deal" on Thursday. OpenAI will have access to current and archived articles from more than 100 years of Time's history.

According to a press release, OpenAI will utilize Time's content to improve its chatbot's capabilities and potentially train its AI models.

In May, OpenAI formed a partnership with The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, Barron's, the New York Post, and other publications, allowing the company to access current and archived articles. Additionally, Reddit announced in May that it would partner with OpenAI, enabling the company to train its AI models on Reddit content.

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