Canadian media companies sue OpenAI in case potentially worth billions

Canada’s major news organizations have sued tech firm OpenAI for potentially billions of dollars, alleging the company is “strip-mining journalism” and unjustly enriching itself by using news articles to train its popular ChatGPT software.

The suit, filed on Friday in Ontario’s superior court of justice, calls for punitive damages, a share of profits made by OpenAI from using the news organizations’ articles, and an injunction barring the San Francisco-based company from using any of the news articles in the future.

“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,” said Paul Deegan, president of News Media Canada.

“They are strip-mining journalism while substantially, unjustly and unlawfully enriching themselves to the detriment of publishers.”

The litigants include the Globe and Mail, the Canadian Press, the CBC, the Toronto Star, Metroland Media and Postmedia. They want up to C$20,000 in damages for each article used by OpenAI, suggesting a victory in court could be worth billions.

“The defendants have engaged in ongoing, deliberate and unauthorized misappropriation of the plaintiffs’ valuable news media works. The plaintiffs bring this action to prevent and seek recompense for these unlawful activities,” said the statement of claim filed by the news organizations.

“To obtain the significant quantities of text data needed to develop their GPT models, OpenAI deliberately ‘scrapes’ (ie, accesses and copies) content from the news media companies’ websites … It then uses that proprietary content to develop its GPT models, without consent or authorization.”

None of the claims have been tested in court.

The suit is the latest in a string of battles by Canadian media against American technology companies, including a bitter feud with Facebook parent Meta. Many news outlets in the US, including the New York Times, have also sued OpenAI.

Valued at more than $150bn, OpenAI has already signed licensing agreements with a handful of media organizations, including the Associated Press wire service, NewsCorp and Condé Nast.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.