OTTAWA — A coalition of Canadian news publishers is suing OpenAI for using news content to train its ChatGPT generative artificial intelligence system, saying the company breaches copyright by “scraping large swaths of content” from media websites.
“OpenAI is capitalizing and profiting from the use of this content, without getting permission or compensating content owners,” the coalition said in a statement Friday.
The coalition, which includes The Canadian Press, Torstar, The Globe and Mail, Postmedia and CBC/Radio-Canada, said the companies invest hundreds of millions of dollars into journalism, and that content is protected by copyright.
“News media companies welcome technological innovations. However, all participants must follow the law, and any use of intellectual property must be on fair terms,” the statement said.
Generative AI can create text, images, videos and computer code based on a simple prompt, but the systems must first study vast amounts of existing content.
OpenAI said in a statement that its models are trained on publicly available data. It said they are “grounded in fair use and related international copyright principles that are fair for creators and support innovation.”
The company said it collaborates “closely with news publishers, including in the display, attribution and links to their content in ChatGPT search” and offers outlets “easy ways to opt-out should they so desire.”
Paul Deegan, the president of publishers’ group News Media Canada, whose members include some of the outlets behind the lawsuit, accused AI companies of “strip-mining journalism” while unlawfully enriching themselves.
“These artificial intelligence companies cannibalize proprietary content and are free-riding on the backs of news publishers who invest real money to employ real journalists who produce real stories for real people,” he said.
In the statement of claim filed in an Ontario court, the coalition asks for damages to be determined at trial, suggesting statutory damages of $20,000 per work. It also asks for an injunction to stop OpenAI from using the news content.
It accuses OpenAI of “ongoing, deliberate, and unauthorized misappropriation of the plaintiffs’ valuable news media works.”
The lawsuit is the first such case in Canada, though numerous actions are underway in the United States, including a case by the New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft.
The Canadian government is currently weighing how to update federal copyright laws to account for the rise of generative AI.
