USA Today sues OpenAI, seeks over $250M in copyright damages
What's the story
OpenAI is facing another lawsuit, this time from USA Today's parent company (Gannett/USA Today Co.) and 13 of its entities. The legal action accuses OpenAI of using their articles and content to train its AI models without permission. The complaint was filed in a Manhattan federal court, alleging that OpenAI copied thousands of news articles and other materials from these publications to develop ChatGPT's technology.
Legal demands
USA Today Co seeks over $250 million in damages
The lawsuit from USA Today Co is seeking over $250 million in damages.
The company has also requested the court to stop OpenAI from using its copyrighted material without authorization.
This case adds to the growing list of legal battles involving tech giants like OpenAI, Meta Platforms, and Anthropic over unauthorized use of content for training their AI models.
Legal history
Anthropic ordered to pay $1.5 billion in copyright lawsuit settlement
The lawsuit against OpenAI comes after a similar case where Anthropic was ordered to pay $1.5 billion to settle a copyright lawsuit by a group of authors for using pirated versions of authors' books without permission to train its AI model, Claude.
The case was filed by a group of authors in 2024 and is one of many legal battles over the use of copyrighted material in AI training.
Ongoing litigation
Ongoing cases could shape copyright laws regarding AI training content
High-profile authors and news organizations, including The New York Times, have also sued OpenAI over alleged unauthorized use of their work in AI training.
The case with The Times even turned into a heated battle over access to ChatGPT users' conversations as part of the evidence-gathering process in 2025.
These ongoing cases could help determine how copyright laws apply to AI companies that use large amounts of text and other content for model development and training.