The Seattle Times and Newsday have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging the companies used their journalism to train generative AI models. The complaint warns that the spread of AI could leave the journalism industry “broken beyond repair.”
The filing describes generative AI as “a snake eating its own tail,” saying it could “destroy the very organizations” that create the source content used for training. According to the lawsuit, products marketed as content creators—such as ChatGPT and CoPilot—are in fact voracious consumers that ingest human-authored material and return copies or derivative imitations of that original content to the public to meet their commercial objectives.
The case follows earlier legal action: in 2023 The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft alleging copyright infringement, and other publications have since brought similar suits. The Seattle Times’ complaint is notable because Microsoft and OpenAI have provided funding for some of the paper’s journalism projects and fellowships.
A Microsoft spokesperson told GeekWire the company was “surprised by the lawsuit,” but said it is “always happy to sit down and explore solutions to this type of dispute.”
Why this matters
The lawsuit highlights tensions between news organizations and AI developers over the legal and business implications of using journalism to train large models. Publishers argue that many commercial AI models rely on human-produced reporting, which can harm newsroom revenue and long-term sustainability. The outcome of these cases could set precedents on the conditions under which news content may be used for AI training.
