Digital media publisher Ziff Davis sued OpenAI on Thursday in federal court in Delaware, accusing the artificial intelligence company MSFT, backed by Microsoft, of misusing its posts to train the model behind the popular chatbot ChatGPT.
Ziff Davis alleges that OpenAI “intentionally and relentlessly” exploited copyrighted content for its AI systems, according to a copy of the lawsuit provided by the media company.
“OpenAI is trying to move quickly and break things, assuming that federal courts won’t be able to effectively address content owners’ sometimes existential concerns before it’s too late,” the lawsuit says.
The new lawsuit adds to a network of high-stakes copyright cases brought by media outlets, authors, visual artists, and others against OpenAI and other technology companies for allegedly misusing thousands of copyrighted works to train their generative AI systems without permission.
Ziff Davis’s publications include tech news outlets ZDNet, PCMag, CNET, and IGN, and the advice website Lifehacker. Other news publishers that have sued AI companies for copyright infringement include the New York Times and Dow Jones.
OpenAI and other defendants, including Google and Meta Platforms, have argued that their AI systems make fair use of copyrighted material by studying it to learn how to create new and transformative content.
An OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement Thursday that its AI models “power innovation, and are trained with publicly available data and based on fair use.”
A Ziff Davis spokesman declined to comment on the lawsuit.
It’s worth noting that, amid lawsuits, OpenAI has struck licensing deals with over 20 media outlets, such as The Washington Post, to legally use their content for AI training and content generation.