The Seattle Times and Newsday Sue OpenAI and Microsoft

The Seattle Times and Newsday filed a federal copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft Corporation on September 4, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The newspapers allege the tech companies scraped their websites, including content behind paywalls, to train AI models used in ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Bing. The plaintiffs argue these tools reproduce and paraphrase their reporting, which diverts website traffic and reduces subscription demand.

The lawsuit seeks financial damages and a court order to destroy all copies of the scraped works, as well as any training datasets or AI models that incorporate them. The Seattle Times characterized AI products as "rapacious consumers" that deliver derivative imitations of original content to achieve commercial goals.

OpenAI maintains that its models rely on publicly available data and fair-use principles, asserting that facts cannot be owned under copyright law. Microsoft Corporation expressed surprise at the lawsuit but stated it is open to exploring solutions. The litigation follows a similar ongoing case involving The New York Times and other news organizations. In that separate matter, the United States Department of Justice filed a Statement of Interest arguing that a ruling for the news organizations could harm national security by slowing AI advancement and benefiting foreign competitors.