USA TODAY sues OpenAI over use of news content

USA TODAY alleges that OpenAI copied hundreds of thousands of its articles and other materials without permission to train the system behind ChatGPT.[2] The complaint further alleges that OpenAI scraped content from the plaintiffs’ websites and repackaged it in outputs to users.[3] USA TODAY says those chatbot outputs can substitute for original articles.[1] The complaint also alleges that content was scraped from the internet without authorization regardless of paywalls or other access restrictions, and that programs were used to remove copyright management information from protected works.[1]

The complaint says content from the plaintiffs’ publications accounted for more than 160,000 entries in WebText, OpenAI’s internal corpus for training GPT-2.[1] It specifically identifies 83,266 entries from usatoday.com and 12,994 from freep.com.[1] USA TODAY seeks damages in excess of $250 million and asks the court to block the alleged infringement.[2] The complaint also cites potential statutory damages of up to $150,000 for each willful copyright infringement and up to $25,000 per violation for removing copyright management information.[1]

The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and USA TODAY asked for it to be treated as related to consolidated OpenAI copyright litigation already pending in that court.[1] The suit names OpenAI Foundation as the defendant.[2] The complaint was filed by attorney Steven Lieberman of Rothwell, Figg, Ernst & Manbeck, and its exhibits include copyright registrations and GPT-5.6 output examples.[1] The lawsuit also includes local outlets such as The Tennessean, Indy Star, The Columbus Dispatch and The Oklahoman.[4]

USA TODAY’s complaint is one of dozens of high-stakes lawsuits copyright owners have filed against technology companies.[2] Technology companies have argued that training on copyrighted material is fair use because it transforms the material into something new.[2] OpenAI has also argued that limiting training data to public-domain works would not produce AI systems that meet current needs.[1] OpenAI did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.[4] The competing positions frame the legal question, but the allegations in this complaint remain claims for the court to assess.