Seattle Times and Newsday sue OpenAI and Microsoft over training data use
7 September 2026 · filed under 1d3d4d76fcdc
The Seattle Times and Newsday have filed suit against OpenAI and Microsoft, joining a growing list of news organizations pursuing legal action over the alleged use of copyrighted journalism to train artificial intelligence systems. The filing, reported by TechCrunch on September 5, adds two more mastheads to a wave of litigation that has been building against the two companies.
The suits allege that OpenAI and Microsoft used published reporting without authorization to train large language models, echoing claims made in earlier actions brought by other publishers. TechCrunch’s report does not detail the specific damages sought or the full text of the complaints, but situates the filing within an expanding pattern of legal challenges from the news industry.
Neither OpenAI nor Microsoft’s response to this particular filing is described in the available reporting. The dispute sits within a broader legal landscape in which courts are being asked to determine whether training AI models on copyrighted text constitutes infringement or falls under existing exceptions.
The outcome of these cases, taken together, is expected to influence how AI companies acquire and license training data going forward, and what obligations, if any, they owe to the publishers whose work has fed those systems.