OpenAI and Microsoft Lawsuit: Nearly 400 Local Newspapers Sue

Nearly 400 local newspaper publishers have filed a federal class action lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. The lawsuit, filed on July 3, 2026, accuses the companies of copying reporting from local newspapers to train their AI models ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot. The publishers allege that the companies stripped away copyright management information from the articles.

The lawsuit claims that the unauthorized use of the newspaper content constitutes copyright infringement. The publishers argue that the AI models derive significant value from the copyrighted material, and that they should be compensated for its use. The case is filed in a federal court, though the specific district was not named in the excerpt.

This lawsuit adds to a growing body of legal challenges facing AI companies over the use of copyrighted training data. Similar cases have been filed by authors, visual artists, and other content creators. The outcome could have implications for how AI models are trained using publicly available content from the internet.