Seattle Times and Newsday sue OpenAI and Microsoft over AI training data

The Latest Legal Front

The Seattle Times and Newsday have filed a joint lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that the companies used their journalism to train artificial intelligence models without authorization. The filing marks a significant escalation in the ongoing legal battle over copyright in the AI era, joining a list of publishers that have already taken the two tech giants to court. The lawsuit was filed in September 2026, continuing a trend that began in 2023 when The New York Times initiated its high-profile case against OpenAI and Microsoft.

The core argument presented by the plaintiffs is that the current state of generative AI is unsustainable for the news industry. The complaint describes the technology as “a snake eating its own tail,” warning that it could “destroy the very organizations” that produce the content used to train it. This framing positions the issue not just as a matter of intellectual property rights, but as an existential threat to the economic viability of journalism.

Specific Allegations and Quotes

The lawsuit contains sharp language regarding the nature of AI products like ChatGPT and Microsoft’s CoPilot. The plaintiffs argue that while these tools are marketed as producers of content, they are actually “rapacious consumers.” The filing states that these systems “devour human-authored content and deliver back to the world copies and derivative imitations of that same original content they consumed to achieve their commercial objectives.”

This characterization directly challenges the notion that AI-generated text is a new form of creation. Instead, the Seattle Times and Newsday assert that the output is merely a recombination of the input data, which in this case is their proprietary journalism. The lawsuit argues that this process breaks the traditional economic model of news, where content is created, sold, and consumed, by creating a cycle where the product is derived from the raw material without compensating the source.

Context of the Dispute

This lawsuit is particularly notable due to the existing relationship between the plaintiffs and the defendants. Microsoft and OpenAI have previously funded journalism projects and fellowships at The Seattle Times. This history complicates the narrative of the dispute, as it suggests a prior relationship of collaboration or support that has now turned adversarial. The New York Times’ 2023 lawsuit set the precedent for these claims, and subsequent filings by other publications have followed a similar legal strategy, arguing that the use of copyrighted text for training purposes constitutes infringement.

Microsoft has responded to the new lawsuit with a statement that expresses surprise at the legal action. A spokesperson told GeekWire that the company is “surprised by the lawsuit” but emphasized that it is “always happy to sit down and explore solutions to this type of dispute.” This response suggests that Microsoft is open to negotiation or licensing agreements, a common strategy in copyright disputes involving large-scale data usage.

Implications for the Industry

The lawsuit argues that the journalism industry could become “broken beyond repair” if the current trajectory of AI development continues. This claim highlights the financial pressure on news organizations, which are increasingly competing with AI tools that can generate summaries, articles, and analyses based on their own content. For developers and tech companies, this legal landscape underscores the growing importance of data provenance and licensing. The ability to train models on public web data is becoming a legal minefield, with major publishers asserting that their content is not free to use.

The case also raises questions about the definition of derivative works in the context of AI. If AI output is considered a derivative of the training data, then the use of that data for commercial purposes without permission could be seen as infringement. This legal interpretation could have far-reaching effects on how AI models are trained and deployed, potentially requiring explicit licenses for large datasets of text.

What to Watch

• Settlement Negotiations: Given Microsoft’s stated willingness to explore solutions, watch for any licensing deals or settlements that could set a precedent for other publishers.
• Court Rulings: The outcome of the New York Times case and other similar lawsuits will likely influence the trajectory of the Seattle Times and Newsday case. Legal precedents established in these early cases will be critical for future disputes.
• Industry Response: Monitor how other news organizations respond to this lawsuit. A coordinated legal strategy among publishers could strengthen their position and increase pressure on AI developers to change their data practices.
• AI Model Training Practices: Look for shifts in how AI companies source and document their training data. Increased transparency and compliance with copyright laws may become a key differentiator for AI products.