Canadian news organizations sue ChatGPT creator

A coalition of Canadian media organizations, including several major outlets, has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, alleging copyright infringement.

The lawsuit, submitted to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Friday, seeks punitive damages from OpenAI and demands payment of any profits the company generated through the use of news articles from these organizations. Additionally, the lawsuit requests an injunction to prevent OpenAI from using their content in the future.

In a joint statement, the media organizations stated, “OpenAI is capitalizing and profiting from the use of this content, without getting permission or compensating content owners,” and accused the company of "regularly breaching copyright" by utilizing content from Canadian media outlets for products like ChatGPT.

When questioned about whether employees of one of the organizations would be restricted from using tools like ChatGPT in light of the lawsuit, a spokesperson declined to comment and referred to the collective statement issued by the media outlets.

A request for comment has been sent to OpenAI regarding the lawsuit.