USA Today Co. and several local newspaper outlets allege OpenAI used hundreds of thousands of their articles to train AI models without permission.
USA Today Co. and local newspapers it owns filed a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI on October 8, seeking more than $250 million in damages. The publisher alleges that OpenAI copied hundreds of thousands of articles for training its AI models without authorization and says the alleged use has caused continuing harm to its outlets. These are claims in a court filing, not findings by a judge.
The complaint includes The Tennessean, the Indy Star, The Columbus Dispatch and The Oklahoman, among other newspapers. The publisher argues that OpenAI used its journalism without seeking permission and ties that alleged use to the value of the company’s products. OpenAI had not immediately responded to The Verge’s request for comment when the article was published.
The case adds another group of news publishers to ongoing copyright litigation involving OpenAI. The Verge lists suits or legal actions involving The New York Times, The Intercept, Ziff Davis, CBC/Radio-Canada, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Merriam-Webster and The Seattle Times, as well as a coalition of nearly 400 local newspapers. The new filing therefore brings both a national publisher and regional newsrooms into an already broad dispute over whether and how copyrighted reporting can be used to develop commercial AI systems.
For publishers, the lawsuit seeks financial damages and challenges the use of their reporting in model training. For OpenAI, the allegations add to legal questions about the sources and permissions behind AI training data. The filing’s outcome, and how the court will assess the publishers’ claims, remain unresolved; the article reports no ruling or response from OpenAI at the time of publication.