USA Today sues OpenAI for US$250m over alleged copyright infringement

KUALA LUMPUR - USA Today Co and several of its affiliated newspapers have sued OpenAI in a US federal court, seeking more than US$250 million (RM1.05 billion) in damages over alleged copyright infringement involving the training of its artificial intelligence (AI) models.

The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges that OpenAI copied hundreds of thousands of articles and other copyrighted materials from the publications without permission to train the technology behind its ChatGPT chatbot.

USA Today Co is also seeking a court injunction to halt the alleged infringement, Reuters reported.

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the complaint, according to Reuters.

The case, USA Today Co v. OpenAI Foundation, adds to a mounting wave of legal challenges brought by news publishers, authors, and other copyright holders against technology firms over their unauthorized use of protected content to develop generative AI systems.

Technology companies, including OpenAI, have consistently argued that training AI models on publicly available copyrighted material constitutes "fair use" under US law, claiming the process transforms the material into entirely new outputs rather than simply reproducing original works.

However, publishers contend that using their proprietary content without authorization or fair compensation directly undermines copyright protections and threatens the financial sustainability of the news industry.

OpenAI and its primary financial backer, Microsoft, are already battling similar high-stakes legal claims in Manhattan from The New York Times and several other major news organizations.

The New York Times filed its landmark lawsuit in late 2023, accusing the tech firms of using millions of its articles without permission to power AI platforms.

That case remains one of the most closely watched legal battles surrounding generative AI technology.

The legal dispute forms part of a broader conflict that will help define whether AI developers can freely train models on copyrighted works without securing licenses from content creators.

US courts are expected to play a decisive role in establishing the legal boundaries of the "fair use" defense in AI copyright disputes, with a series of high-profile cases involving major tech platforms and content owners progressing through the federal court system.

The outcomes could carry profound implications for news publishers, authors, content creators, and technology developers worldwide. - October 10, 2026

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