Seattle Times Sues: OpenAI Took the Words, Kept the Profit
The two outlets join a growing roster of publishers — including The New York Times, which filed its own landmark case in late 2023 — that have concluded licensing negotiations are futile and litigation is the only lever left.
The Seattle Times and Newsday have filed suit against OpenAI and Microsoft in the United States, accusing both companies of using decades of copyrighted journalism to train artificial intelligence systems without permission or payment, according to TechCrunch.
The two outlets join a growing roster of publishers — including The New York Times, which filed its own landmark case in late 2023 — that have concluded licensing negotiations are futile and litigation is the only lever left. The core argument is familiar but sharpening with each new plaintiff: that AI language models are not merely inspired by journalism, they are built from it, and the companies that built them have profited accordingly while the newsrooms that produced the underlying work have watched revenues collapse.
What makes this filing notable is the profile of the plaintiffs. The Seattle Times is one of the last major independently owned metropolitan dailies in the United States. Newsday serves the New York market. Neither is a fringe outlet testing a legal theory — both are institutions with archives stretching back over a century, which significantly expands the scope of potential damages.
Microsoft has declined to comment publicly. OpenAI has previously argued that training on publicly available text constitutes fair use under US copyright law — a position no court has yet definitively upheld or rejected.
The outcome of this wave of litigation will set the terms under which AI and journalism can coexist, or whether they can at all.
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*By Isla Camilleri, Global Affairs & Lifestyle Editor — News Beast by FreeMalta.com*
