OpenAI and Microsoft are facing another major copyright lawsuit from the news industry, adding fresh pressure to an already expanding legal battle over how artificial intelligence companies use journalism to build and operate AI systems.
The Seattle Times and Newsday filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft on September 4, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The publishers accuse the companies of using their copyrighted journalism without permission to train and operate AI products including ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Bing’s AI features.
The case is particularly significant because the publishers allege that the companies scraped their websites, including content protected by paywalls, and incorporated the articles into datasets used by their AI systems.
The newspapers also argue that AI products can reproduce passages from their reporting, closely paraphrase their articles and provide answers that reduce the need for users to visit their websites or purchase subscriptions.
Seattle Times and Newsday Join the AI Copyright Fight
The lawsuit was filed jointly by two established U.S. newspapers.
The Seattle Times is a major regional newspaper serving the Pacific Northwest, while Newsday is a major newspaper serving Long Island and the New York metropolitan area.
According to the court docket, the case is The Seattle Times Company et al. v. OpenAI Inc. et al., Case No. 1:2026cv07644, and was filed on September 4 in the Southern District of New York. The listed defendants include Microsoft and multiple OpenAI entities.
The complaint seeks a jury trial.
The case therefore adds two more prominent publishers to the growing group challenging the use of copyrighted content in generative AI.
What Are the Publishers Accusing OpenAI and Microsoft Of?
At the center of the complaint is the alleged unauthorized copying of journalism.
The publishers claim OpenAI and Microsoft scraped articles from their websites, including material located behind paywalls.
According to the allegations, that content was then incorporated into datasets used to train and operate AI systems behind products such as:
- ChatGPT
- Microsoft Copilot
- Bing’s AI features
The publishers argue that their journalism is not simply being used as background information.
They say the resulting AI products can sometimes generate passages from their reporting or closely reproduce the substance of their articles, potentially allowing users to obtain information without visiting the original publisher.
It is important to emphasize that these are allegations in a newly filed lawsuit, not findings that a court has already established.
The Paywall Issue Could Make the Case More Significant
One of the more important allegations concerns paywalled material.
The publishers claim that copyrighted content that was not freely available to everyone was nevertheless scraped and incorporated into AI datasets.
That raises a particularly important question for the AI industry:
Does the fact that information is publicly accessible on the internet mean an AI company can freely use it for training?
The publishers’ position is effectively no.
They argue that accessibility does not eliminate copyright protection or the economic value of journalism.
For AI companies, the counterargument is likely to focus on fair use and the transformative nature of machine learning.
Publishers Say AI Could Compete With the Journalism That Trains It
The complaint goes beyond the question of copying.
The newspapers argue that generative AI can become a substitute for the original news organizations whose reporting provides the underlying information.
Their argument is essentially:
Publishers spend money to research, report and publish original journalism → AI systems learn from that journalism → AI systems answer questions using that information → users may have less reason to visit the original publisher.
That creates a potentially damaging economic feedback loop.
Newsday described the problem in particularly strong terms, arguing that generative AI trained on expensive, human-produced journalism could threaten the organizations responsible for producing that journalism.
Why Microsoft Is Also Named in the Lawsuit
OpenAI is not the only technology company named as a defendant.
Microsoft is also included because of its close relationship with OpenAI and the use of OpenAI technology across Microsoft AI products.
The lawsuit specifically identifies Microsoft Copilot and Bing’s AI features among the products connected to the alleged use of the publishers’ content.
This follows an established pattern in AI copyright litigation.
Publishers have increasingly targeted both the companies developing foundation models and the technology platforms integrating those models into consumer and enterprise products.
What Do OpenAI and Microsoft Say?
OpenAI has defended its general approach to training AI models by arguing that its systems are trained using publicly available information and that its use of such material is protected by fair-use principles.
A spokesperson did not specifically address every allegation in the new complaint, according to Reuters.
Microsoft, meanwhile, said it was surprised by the lawsuit but indicated that it recognizes the importance of local journalism and remains willing to discuss potential solutions.
Neither company’s position means the legal question has been resolved.
The court will ultimately have to evaluate the specific allegations and evidence.
Publishers Are Asking for More Than Money
The lawsuit is notable because the publishers are seeking remedies that could have implications for AI systems themselves.
According to reporting on the complaint, the newspapers are seeking the destruction of copies of their works as well as training datasets and AI models that incorporate their copyrighted material.
That is potentially much more consequential than a conventional damages claim.
If a court were ever to order the removal or destruction of copyrighted material incorporated into AI training systems, developers could face difficult questions about:
- Retraining models
- Removing training data
- Rebuilding datasets
- Auditing model outputs
- Separating licensed and unlicensed content
However, the requested remedy is a request from the plaintiffs, not something the court has ordered.
This Comes as Microsoft Faces Another Copyright Battle
The new lawsuit arrives at a particularly important moment for Microsoft and OpenAI.
Just days earlier, Microsoft filed its own summary-judgment arguments in the separate copyright litigation involving The New York Times and other publishers.
Microsoft argued that AI training using copyrighted material can qualify as transformative fair use and cited analysis of millions of Copilot conversations to argue that substantial reproduction of copyrighted works is relatively uncommon.
That case is still unresolved.
The new Seattle Times and Newsday lawsuit therefore arrives while the broader legal debate is already moving toward a major test of AI fair-use principles.
The US Government Has Also Entered the Debate
The timing is even more significant because the U.S. government recently sided with OpenAI in its separate New York Times litigation.
The Justice Department argued that training AI models on copyrighted material can generally qualify as fair use and warned that restrictions could harm U.S. technological development and competitiveness.
That creates a sharp divide:
AI companies: Training is transformative and can qualify as fair use.
Publishers: Unauthorized use of journalism can undermine the economic market that funds original reporting.
The courts now have to determine how existing copyright law applies to this new technology.
The Lawsuit Is Part of a Much Bigger Trend
The Seattle Times and Newsday case is not happening in isolation.
In June 2026, a coalition representing nearly 400 newspapers also sued OpenAI and Microsoft over alleged unauthorized scraping and use of publisher content.
Other publishers and creators have filed separate lawsuits against AI companies, including cases involving books, journalism, music and other copyrighted works.
This suggests the industry’s response is splitting into two broad strategies:
Licensing
Some publishers are negotiating commercial agreements that allow AI companies to use their content under specific terms.
Litigation
Others are pursuing lawsuits, arguing that AI companies should not be allowed to use copyrighted material without permission or compensation.
The outcome of these competing strategies could help determine how the AI content economy develops.
Why This Case Matters for ChatGPT and Copilot
For ordinary users, copyright litigation may sound like a technical legal issue.
But the consequences could eventually affect how AI products work.
If courts require licenses for large categories of copyrighted training data, AI companies could face significantly higher content-acquisition costs.
Those costs could influence:
- AI subscription prices
- Search and chatbot features
- Publisher partnerships
- Training-data policies
- Web crawling practices
- AI-generated news summaries
- The availability of certain content through AI assistants
The opposite outcome could give AI companies considerably more freedom to use publicly accessible information for model development.
The Bigger Question: Who Should Get Paid When AI Learns From the Web?
At the heart of the dispute is a much broader economic question.
The modern internet contains enormous amounts of human-created knowledge.
AI companies want to use that information to build increasingly capable models.
Publishers, authors and other creators argue that the economic value of their work should not simply flow toward AI companies without compensation.
That leaves policymakers and courts facing a difficult problem:
How can society encourage AI innovation while ensuring that the industries producing the information AI depends on remain economically sustainable?
There is no universally accepted answer yet.
What Happens Next?
The Seattle Times and Newsday case will now move through the federal court system.
The defendants will have opportunities to respond to the allegations and challenge the publishers’ claims.
The court will ultimately have to consider the evidence, the specific uses of the copyrighted works and the legal standards governing copyright and fair use.
The new case could also interact with the growing body of AI copyright litigation already before federal courts.
For now, the filing itself does not establish that OpenAI or Microsoft violated copyright.
It establishes that two more major publishers are asking a federal court to decide whether their journalism was unlawfully used by AI systems.
The Bottom Line
The fresh lawsuit from The Seattle Times and Newsday adds another major front to the escalating AI copyright war.
The publishers allege that OpenAI and Microsoft scraped their journalism—including paywalled content—and used it in AI systems that can reproduce or closely paraphrase their work.
OpenAI maintains that its models rely on publicly available information and fair-use principles, while Microsoft has signaled that it is open to discussing solutions.
The bigger issue goes far beyond these two newspapers.
As AI companies increasingly rely on the open web to build powerful models, courts are being asked to decide whether “publicly accessible” also means “fair to use for AI training.”
The answer could reshape the relationship between AI companies, publishers and the entire internet.
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FAQ
Who sued OpenAI and Microsoft in the latest copyright case?
The Seattle Times Company and Newsday LLC filed the lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft on September 4, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
What are Seattle Times and Newsday alleging?
The publishers allege that OpenAI and Microsoft scraped their websites, including paywalled content, and incorporated their journalism into datasets used to train and operate AI products.
Which AI products are mentioned in the lawsuit?
The allegations concern AI systems behind products including ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Bing’s AI features.
Are Seattle Times and Newsday claiming that AI reproduces their articles?
Yes. The publishers allege that AI products can reproduce passages from their reporting and closely paraphrase their journalism.
Has a court ruled that OpenAI and Microsoft infringed copyright?
No. The lawsuit contains allegations that have not yet been established as facts by a court.
What are the publishers asking the court to do?
Among other remedies, the publishers are seeking the destruction of copies of their works and training datasets or AI models that incorporate their copyrighted material.
What is OpenAI’s defense?
OpenAI has generally argued that its models are trained on publicly available information and that its use of such material is protected by fair-use principles.
What did Microsoft say about the lawsuit?
Microsoft said it was surprised by the lawsuit but indicated that it recognizes the importance of local journalism and remains open to discussing solutions.
Why is this lawsuit important for AI?
The case could contribute to defining whether AI companies can use copyrighted journalism to train and operate commercial AI systems without obtaining permission or licenses.
