Two major regional newspapers just added their names to the growing list of publishers taking OpenAI to court. According to The Information, The Seattle Times and Newsday have filed suit against OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing the companies of using their journalism without permission to build and run AI products. It’s the latest sign that the legal pressure on generative AI keeps building, not easing.
What happened
The two papers filed copyright claims against OpenAI and its biggest backer, Microsoft, as The Information reports. The core allegation follows a now-familiar pattern: that the companies scraped and used copyrighted news articles to train their models and power products like ChatGPT, without a license and without paying for it.
The Seattle Times is one of the largest newspapers in the Pacific Northwest. Newsday serves the New York metro area and Long Island. Neither is a national giant on the scale of The New York Times, and that’s part of what makes this notable. The fight is spreading beyond the biggest players and into the regional press.
Why this matters
This is significant because it shows the copyright battle isn’t a one-off dispute with a single powerful plaintiff. It’s turning into a broad front.
Since The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in late 2023, a steady stream of publishers, authors, and artists have followed. Some outlets chose a different path and signed licensing deals instead. News Corp, the Associated Press, Axel Springer, and others cut agreements to get paid for their content. The Seattle Times and Newsday are betting on the courtroom rather than the negotiating table.
What stands out here is the split forming across the industry:
- The litigators: Publishers who believe their content was taken illegally and want damages plus a legal precedent.
- The licensors: Publishers who decided a paid deal now beats an uncertain lawsuit later.
Every new filing raises the stakes for how that split resolves.
The bigger picture
At the heart of all these cases sits one unsettled question: does training an AI model on copyrighted work count as fair use, or does it require a license and payment?
OpenAI and Microsoft have argued that training on publicly available material is transformative and protected. Publishers argue the opposite, that their reporting is the raw fuel these systems run on, and that AI chatbots can even reproduce their work or compete directly with it for readers. Courts haven’t given a clear, final answer yet. Until they do, expect more suits like this one.
For practitioners building on top of these models, the risk isn’t abstract. A major adverse ruling could force changes to how models are trained, what data is allowed, and what licensing costs get baked into the tools everyone relies on. Higher data costs tend to flow downstream.
What to watch next
A few things worth tracking as this plays out:
- Consolidation. Many of these cases could eventually be grouped or moved to similar courts, which would concentrate the impact of any single ruling.
- Settlements vs. rulings. OpenAI has shown it will pay to license content. Watch whether these papers settle or push for a precedent-setting decision.
- The regional wave. If two mid-size papers can mount a credible case, others may feel emboldened to file rather than negotiate.
- Microsoft’s exposure. As OpenAI’s largest partner, Microsoft keeps landing as a co-defendant. Its deep pockets make it a natural target.
The near-term takeaway is simple. The question of who owns the training data behind modern AI is heading for the courts, and the outcome will shape both the economics and the legality of the products millions of people already use every day. More detail on the filings is available at the original source.
For anyone building with or betting on these tools, this is the story to keep one eye on. The models may be moving fast, but the law is starting to catch up.