Canadian Media Giants Sue OpenAI
Several major Canadian news organizations — including CBC and Toronto Star — filed a joint lawsuit against OpenAI in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Friday, seeking damages of CA$20K (US$14.7K) per article they claim was used to train ChatGPT....
Facts
- Several major Canadian news organizations — including CBC and Toronto Star — filed a joint lawsuit against OpenAI in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Friday, seeking damages of CA$20K (US$14.7K) per article they claim was used to train ChatGPT.[1][2][3]
- The media companies allege that OpenAI inappropriately and illegally scraped content from their websites without authorization or compensation to power its large language models, violating copyright laws and terms of use agreements.[4][5][6]
- The 84-page lawsuit demands punitive damages, profit sharing, and 'permanent injunctive relief' to prevent OpenAI from using their content to train its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot in the future.[7][8]
- OpenAI, valued at over $150B, has previously secured licensing agreements with several publishers including the Associated Press, NewsCorp, and Condé Nast.[2]
- This legal action follows similar lawsuits filed in the US by The New York Times and other publishers. However, Microsoft-backed OpenAI recently won a dismissal in a case brought by Raw Story and AlterNet.[9][1]
- The Canadian lawsuit marks the first such case in Canada, potentially setting a precedent for how copyright laws apply to AI training data in the country.[10]
Sources: [1]New York Times, [2]Guardian, [3]Litigate, [4]Verge, [5]TechCrunch, [6]CBC, [7]BBC News, [8]PCMAG, [9]Al Jazeera and [10]CTVNews.
Narratives
- Narrative A, as provided by CBC. The unauthorized use of journalistic content for commercial AI development undermines the substantial investments made by news organizations in producing quality journalism, while allowing tech companies to profit from others' intellectual property without compensation or consent.
- Narrative B, as provided by Openai. The AI models are trained on publicly available data in accordance with fair use principles that support innovation. News publishers are offered attribution, links to their content, and the option to opt out of data collection, demonstrating a collaborative approach to technological advancement.
