A coalition of Canada’s major news organizations has launched a lawsuit against OpenAI over the alleged unauthorized use of their articles to train ChatGPT. As reported by Josh Rubin for the Toronto Star, the lawsuit includes prominent media outlets such as the Toronto Star, Metroland Media, Postmedia, The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press, and CBC. The legal action, filed in Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice, seeks billions in damages and an injunction to prevent future use of their content.
The plaintiffs are demanding up to $20,000 in statutory damages per article used by OpenAI, alleging the company illegally “scraped” content from their websites without consent. OpenAI has defended its practices, stating their models are trained on publicly available data under fair use principles. The case marks the first time all major news publishers in a single country have united in litigation against OpenAI, joining similar lawsuits from other media organizations worldwide.