technology & law•Sat, September 5, 2026•4 min read

The Seattle Times and Newsday Take on OpenAI and Microsoft in Copyright Suit

The Seattle Times and Newsday have officially filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging their content was used to train AI models without authorization. This development marks yet another significant legal challenge for tech giants in the ongoing debate over copyright and generative AI.

A Escalating Copyright Conflict

The legal pressure mounting against AI developers continues to intensify as two major U.S. newspapers, The Seattle Times and Newsday, have launched a new copyright infringement lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI. The suit alleges that these technology companies harvested proprietary journalistic content to train their AI models without obtaining permission or providing compensation.

This latest filing arrives as part of a wider wave of litigation aimed at how generative AI companies source data. The plaintiffs are not merely seeking damages; they are pursuing a court order that would require the defendants to destroy all copies of their works, as well as any training datasets or AI models that incorporate the newspapers' protected content.

The dispute centers on the use of copyrighted journalistic content in large language model training.

The Core Allegations

At the heart of the dispute is the mechanism behind Large Language Models (LLMs). Publishers argue that by ingesting vast amounts of news articles, tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft's Copilot become direct competitors that repurpose their work without the need for readers to visit the publishers' websites.

Unauthorized use of copyrighted journalistic content for AI model training.
Concerns regarding the regurgitation of news content, potentially bypassing the publishers' platforms.
A demand for the destruction of training datasets and models containing the plaintiffs' intellectual property.
The broader industry trend of media companies fighting to protect their digital archives.

A Changing Landscape for AI

The inclusion of major regional publishers highlights that this is not a niche disagreement but an industry-wide confrontation. Historically, AI developers have argued that their data collection processes fall under 'fair use,' a defense that is currently being stress-tested in courts across the United States. As litigation evolves, the outcome of these cases could fundamentally reshape the economics of AI development, forcing companies to move toward licensing models rather than open-ended web scraping.

The Seattle Times and Newsday are seeking an order requiring OpenAI and Microsoft to destroy copies of their works, as well as any training datasets or AI models that incorporate the newspapers' content.
— NDTV Profit

Key Takeaways

The Seattle Times and Newsday are the latest publishers to sue OpenAI and Microsoft over copyright infringement.
Plaintiffs are seeking the destruction of AI training datasets containing their journalistic works.
The core issue is the training of AI models on copyrighted data without compensation or permission.
Legal analysts view these lawsuits as critical tests for the 'fair use' doctrine in the age of generative AI.
The outcome could mandate new licensing requirements for tech companies building large language models.

FAQ

Why are The Seattle Times and Newsday suing OpenAI and Microsoft?

They allege that the tech companies used their articles to train AI models without authorization or payment.

What is the desired outcome for the newspapers?

They are seeking damages and a court order to destroy AI training datasets and models that incorporate their copyrighted content.

Are other newspapers involved in similar litigation?

Yes, many publishers have raised concerns, and previous cases, such as the one filed by The New York Times, have set a precedent for this type of legal challenge.

What is the defense typically used by AI companies?

AI developers often argue that their use of publicly available data to train models constitutes 'fair use'.