According to The Verge, Microsoft and OpenAI are facing numerous legal claims for copyright infringement, with three additional news sites – The Intercept, Raw Story, and AlterNet – joining the lawsuits. They allege that ChatGPT has been reproducing news content without proper attribution, essentially copying articles without acknowledging the original authors.
The news sites, all represented by the same law firm, argue that if ChatGPT was trained on copyrighted material, it should have been programmed to respect those copyrights when generating responses. Raw Story and AlterNet claim that Microsoft and OpenAI were aware that the chatbot could face backlash from users if they believed it was violating third-party copyrights.
In their lawsuit, the news organizations point out that OpenAI provides an opt-out system for website owners, indicating that the companies should have been aware of potential copyright issues. Microsoft and OpenAI have stated that they will defend customers against legal claims related to copyright infringement and cover any associated costs.
Last year, The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, seeking damages for allegedly reciting articles verbatim. OpenAI has refuted the claim, attributing the issue to a ChatGPT bug. The companies are also facing lawsuits from non-fiction authors and comedian Sarah Silverman over similar copyright infringement allegations.
