Seattle Times and Newsday are the latest publications to sue OpenAI and Microsoft
TechCrunch Anthony Ha
The Seattle Times and Newsday are suing OpenAI and Microsoft over AI training on their journalism. They say the tech could wreck newsrooms by feeding on the very work it copies.
Based on reporting by TechCrunch, Anthony Ha — read the original for the full story.
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Two more newspapers have taken OpenAI and Microsoft to court over claims that their reporting was used to train AI systems. The new lawsuit comes from The Seattle Times and Newsday, and it uses unusually stark language about where this goes if nothing changes: a journalism industry that could end up “broken beyond repair.”
The complaint casts generative AI as self-devouring machinery, “a snake eating its own tail.” It says tools like ChatGPT and CoPilot are presented as content makers, but are really “rapacious consumers” that ingest human reporting and spit back “copies and derivative imitations” to serve commercial goals.
This is not the first time the two companies have faced that kind of fight. The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft back in 2023, and other publishers have piled on since then. The Seattle Times case stands out for another reason: Microsoft and OpenAI have already funded some of the paper’s journalism projects and fellowships.
Microsoft told GeekWire it was surprised by the lawsuit, but said it is willing to sit down and look for solutions. That is the polite corporate version of a very old problem: tech companies love the news until it sends them a bill.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is the open web’s favorite little scam, dressed up as innovation. Newsrooms do the work, AI companies vacuum it up, and then everyone pretends a “solution” will appear if they just keep talking. The Seattle Times angle makes the whole thing uglier, because funding journalism while allegedly training on it is not partnership — it’s overlap with benefits.
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