Canadian Media Sues OpenAI For Alleged Violations Of Copyright

Five Canadian media companies filed a lawsuit against OpenAI (photo: x @elonmusk ·)

JAKARTA Five Canadian media companies filed a lawsuit against OpenAI on Friday, November 29, accusing the artificial intelligence company of violating copyright by illegally taking their content to train the AI system. The lawsuit was filed by Torstar, Postmedia, The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press, and CBC/Radio-Canada at the Ontario High Court.

In a statement, the media company confirmed that OpenAI took their journalistic content without permission and without compensation, using the work for commercial gain.

"Jurnalism is in the public interest. The use of journalism by OpenAI for commercial gain without a permit is illegal," they said.

The 84-page lawsuit asked for compensation and appealed to the court to issue a permanent ban so OpenAI would not use their content without consent.

"Instead of obtaining legal information, OpenAI deliberately took the intellectual property belonging to media companies and used it for commercial purposes without compensation," they wrote in the lawsuit.

In addition, the media company stated that it had never received any compensation from OpenAI for the use of their content.

OpenAI defended itself by stating that their model was trained using publicly available data and in accordance with fair use principles as well as international copyright law.

We are working with news publishers, including displaying contributions and links to their content on ChatGPT. We also offer an easy way for those who want to get out of this program," said an OpenAI spokesperson.

This lawsuit is part of a wave of lawsuits against tech companies that use data to train a generative AI system. Writers, visual artists, and music publishers have also sued companies such as OpenAI and Microsoft, which are OpenAI's main investors.

The latest lawsuit doesn't mention Microsoft directly, but Elon Musk previously expanded the lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing the two of trying to monopolize the generative AI market.

The case reflects global concerns over copyright protection in the AI era that continues to grow.