Center for Investigative Reporting sues Microsoft and OpenAI for copyright infringement

The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), the non-profit organisation behind Mother Jones and Reveal, filed a lawsuit against tech giants Microsoft and OpenAI on Thursday, alleging unauthorised use of their copyrighted material to train AI models. This legal action follows similar lawsuits filed by The New York Times and other media organisations.

CIR accuses OpenAI and Microsoft of scraping their journalistic content without permission or compensation to bolster the capabilities of AI products like ChatGPT.

"OpenAI and Microsoft started vacuuming up our stories to make their product more powerful, but they never asked for permission or offered compensation, unlike other organisations that license our material," stated Monika Bauerlein, CEO of CIR. "This free rider behaviour is not only unfair, it is a violation of copyright. The work of journalists, at CIR and everywhere, is valuable, and OpenAI and Microsoft know it.”

The lawsuit argues that this unauthorised use of their content undermines CIR's relationships with readers and partners while depriving them of rightful revenue.

This lawsuit adds CIR to a growing list of media entities taking legal action against OpenAI and Microsoft over similar copyright concerns. The New York Times, already invested $1 million in its legal battle, alongside publications owned by Alden Global Capital (including the New York Daily News and Chicago Tribune), The Intercept, Raw Story, AlterNet, and The Denver Post, are also engaged in litigation.

Interestingly, some media organisations have opted for a different approach, signing licensing deals with OpenAI. These include prominent names like The Associated Press, Axel Springer, the Financial Times, Dotdash Meredith, News Corp, Vox Media, The Atlantic, and Time.

Responding to CIR's lawsuit, an OpenAI spokesperson told CNBC, "We are working collaboratively with the news industry and partnering with global news publishers to display their content in our products like ChatGPT, including summaries, quotes, and attribution, to drive traffic back to the original articles.”