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Journalism of Courage
A coalition of leading Canadian news organisations has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, the company behind the AI chatbot ChatGPT, accusing it of illegally using their copyrighted content to train its models.
The plaintiffs include prominent outlets such as the Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, CBC, The Canadian Press, Metroland Media, and Postmedia. This marks the first legal action of its kind in Canada.
“Journalism serves the public interest. OpenAI’s use of other companies’ journalism for its own commercial purposes is illegal,” the media group stated collectively, reported by BBC news.
OpenAI defended its practices, asserting that its AI models are built on “publicly available data” and adhere to “fair use and related international copyright principles.” The company added, “We collaborate closely with news publishers, including offering attribution, links to their content in ChatGPT search, and easy opt-out options if requested.”
The lawsuit, detailed in an 84-page filing, alleges that OpenAI has disregarded measures like paywalls and copyright disclaimers to prevent unauthorised copying of content. The media coalition accused OpenAI of “scraping vast amounts of content from Canadian media to develop products such as ChatGPT.”
The plaintiffs are seeking punitive damages of C$20,000 (£11,000) per article allegedly used without permission, potentially amounting to billions in compensation. Additionally, they are demanding an injunction to prevent OpenAI from using their content in the future and a share of profits generated through the alleged misuse of their work.
This case follows similar lawsuits in the US, including one by the New York Times, which last year accused OpenAI of destroying evidence crucial to its case. Additionally, a group of authors, led by the Authors Guild and writers such as John Grisham, has launched a copyright infringement lawsuit against the AI developer.
Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI was valued at C$219bn (£128bn) after its latest fundraising round.
(with inputs from BBC news)
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