USA Today Co. sues OpenAI for more than $250 million over ChatGPT

USA Today Co. and 13 affiliated companies, which publish 19 newspapers, have sued seven OpenAI entities in the Southern District of New York, alleging copyright infringement. The complaint is dated 8 October and was reported on 12 October.

The publishers said OpenAI copied hundreds of thousands of news articles without permission to train its models and that ChatGPT reproduces their reporting, according to Law Commentary. They seek more than $250 million in damages.

The 79-page complaint names newspapers including The Arizona Republic, Detroit Free Press, The Tennessean, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Indianapolis Star.

The complaint cites more than 160,000 entries from the papers' sites in OpenAI's WebText dataset. About 83,300 of them are tied to USA Today's website. Its examples use GPT-5.6.

It also brings a claim under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The publishers allege OpenAI stripped author names, titles and other ownership information from the articles.

Beyond damages, the plaintiffs seek an injunction, profits attributable to the copying, attorneys' fees and a jury trial. They also ask for destruction of GPT and other models and training datasets containing their material, under Section 503(b) of the Copyright Act.

The publishers argue that ChatGPT's commercial use and its potential to substitute for news content undermine a fair-use defence. They say it could cut traffic and subscription, advertising and licensing revenue.

OpenAI has defended similar suits on fair-use grounds. The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in December 2023 over similar claims. The report did not include a response from OpenAI, and it did not link the filing.

The plaintiffs have asked the court to treat the case as related to the consolidated OpenAI copyright litigation.