Seattle Times and Newsday sue OpenAI and Microsoft over unauthorized AI training
The regional newspapers accuse the AI developers of operating as 'rapacious consumers' that devour original journalism to build commercial products.
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- The Seattle Times and Newsday have filed a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging unauthorized use of their articles to train generative models.
- The lawsuit describes AI training as a 'snake eating its own tail' that threatens to break the economic model of local and regional journalism.
- The litigation is notable because The Seattle Times previously accepted funding and fellowships from Microsoft and OpenAI for local journalism projects.
- Microsoft expressed surprise at the filing but reiterated its willingness to sit down and explore collaborative solutions with publishers.
The Seattle Times and Newsday have filed a joint copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, marking a fresh escalation in the legal conflict between newsrooms and generative artificial intelligence companies. The lawsuit, filed in federal court, accuses the defendants of unlawfully copying and 'devouring' hundreds of thousands of human-authored, copyrighted articles to train their commercial models, including ChatGPT and CoPilot, without permission or compensation.
The plaintiffs leverage particularly aggressive rhetoric to describe the long-term impact of unregulated AI scraping. The lawsuit characterizes the developers as 'rapacious consumers' that absorb original work to deliver automated, derivative imitations, creating a parasitic cycle that resembles 'a snake eating its own tail.' If AI platforms continue to divert traffic and advertising revenue away from original publishers, the plaintiffs warn, the underlying journalism industry could become broken beyond repair.
The filing is legally and strategically significant because of the plaintiffs' previous relationships with the defendants. The Seattle Times has a history of accepting corporate funding and fellowships from both Microsoft and OpenAI to support local journalism initiatives. The decision to file suit demonstrates that philanthropic and collaborative programs are increasingly viewed as insufficient to offset the structural threat that generative training poses to the subscription-based business models of regional news organizations.
In response to the filing, Microsoft expressed surprise but maintained a diplomatic tone, stating that it remains committed to collaborating with publishers to find mutually beneficial solutions. This litigation follows a major precedent set by The New York Times lawsuit in 2023, along with several subsequent filings by other publishing groups, signaling a coordinated legal campaign to force AI developers into a universal licensing model for training data.
This lawsuit shatters the hope that regional publishers can be appeased with localized grants or fellowships. By describing AI training as a parasitic loop that destroys its own data source, the suit highlights an existential struggle. The outcome will help determine whether AI giants must pay licensing fees to the entire publishing industry, potentially cementing a legal toll system that only the wealthiest frontier labs can afford.
Will other regional newspapers join the Seattle Times suit as co-plaintiffs, or will they seek individual licensing agreements with OpenAI and Microsoft?
Still open. When the paper finds out, it will say so here and on the open questions page — including if it got this wrong.