A group of Canadian media outlets – including CBC/Radio-Canada, Postmedia, Metroland, the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and the Canadian Press – have launched a joint copyright infringement lawsuit against ChatGPT creator OpenAI.
THE a lawsuit has been filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice Friday morning and is seeking punitive damages from OpenAI, as well as payment for all profits the company made using the organizations’ news articles.
He is also seeking an injunction barring OpenAI from using his news articles in the future.
The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing them of using millions of articles from the newspaper without permission to help train artificial intelligence technologies.
In a joint statementThe companies wrote that “OpenAI capitalizes on and profits from the use of this content, without obtaining permission from or compensating the content owners,” and claim that OpenAI “routinely infringes copyright” by using content from Canadian media for products such as ChatGPT.
When asked whether CBC would block its employees from using tools such as ChatGPT as a result of the lawsuit, a spokesperson for the Crown corporation declined to answer and referred to the media statement.
Canadian action comes 11 months after US trial
In an emailed statement to CBC News, an OpenAI spokesperson said the company’s models are trained on publicly available data and said the company is “founded” on international principles of copyright.
“We work closely with news publishers, including displaying, attribution and links to their content in ChatGPT search, and provide easy ways for them to opt-out if they wish,” wrote OpenAI.
CBC/Radio-Canada, Postmedia, Metroland, the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and The Canadian Press have launched a joint lawsuit against ChatGPT creator OpenAI for using news content to train its intelligence system generative artificial ChatGPT. News organizations claim OpenAI is violating copyright by “removing content” from their websites.
In the Canadian lawsuit, national media outlets claim that OpenAI was “well aware of its obligations to obtain a valid license” to use their content.
At the end of December 2023, the New York Times filed a complaint against the technology company. At the time, OpenAI said it respected the rights of content creators and owners and was committed to working with them to ensure they benefit from AI technology and new revenue models.
This lawsuit is still ongoing, with the Times claim in April that OpenAI had potentially erased research results the journal might need to make its case.
The value of OpenAI has been estimated at 157 billion US dollars in recent months.
Is it just reading an article if the AI does it?
Media and technology researcher Richard Lachman says companies like OpenAI say it’s not wrong to use publicly available news articles to train an artificial intelligence system.
“The companies’ argument is, ‘We’re basically reading the information that was on a public website. It’s not illegal. A human can read the information,'” said Lachman, an associate professor at the RTA School of Media from Toronto Metropolitan University. .
“Of course the (media) companies react and say, ‘You’re not reading news, you’re scraping news. And that goes against our terms of service.'”
Lachman likened the situation to a recent offer by a major book publisher to pay authors $2,500 to use their work in training artificial intelligence. He said it was an example of content and media companies realizing they might be able to make money when their content is used by tech giants.
“Clearly, there is value. The question is: What is that value?” he said. “I don’t know exactly how this calculation is done.”
No exemption for AI in Canadian copyright law
It’s far from clear whether Canadian copyright law would side with media or tech companies in cases like this.
Although OpenAI has won a copyright lawsuit against the media Raw Story in the United States, lawsuits are still pending against the New York Times and a group of authors in this country.
The scenario in Canada could be very different, lawyers say. Copyright law in this country includes a concept called “fair use,” which may allow someone to use content without infringing copyright if it is intended for purposes such as “research, private study, education, parody or satire” .
However, fair use does not include a category for AI training, according to intellectual property lawyer Gaspard Petit.
“There is a category for research, so you can create your own (artificial intelligence) model, do your own research, but if you start building a business around that, you’re out of that exception,” said Little.
That could mean U.S. victories don’t apply here, he said.
Copyright infringement could be difficult to prove when it comes specifically to news articles, said legal expert Lisa Macklem.
“There is no copyright on the facts, which is primarily what the media provides,” said Macklem, a lawyer and lecturer at King’s University College at Western University in London, Ont. .
She said media companies would have to prove that OpenAI’s actual results bear “substantial similarity” to their existing publications.
However, she added that OpenAI could be vulnerable due to allegations that it violated media companies’ terms of service, which in many cases state that use of material from their websites must be made for personal, non-commercial purposes.
Mixed opinions on whether the law should change in Canada
Macklem said this case highlights an “immediate and urgent need to put regulations in place” around generative AI, a message echoed by Petit.
“I think the government will probably have to intervene at some point,” he told CBC News, but he also said new cases like this need to be tried in court to help set precedent and case law.
Industry players have previously criticized federal moves to regulate artificial intelligence, saying the regulatory changes could stifle innovation and make it harder to compete with foreign companies.
The federal government is consulting on Canadian Copyright Law regarding generative AI, but has not yet reported its findings.
Julien Billot leads ScaleAI, an organization that helps fund and scale the adoption of artificial intelligence in Canadian businesses. According to him, the existing laws are already sufficient.
“In most cases, existing privacy, copyright and other laws are already very effective in protecting businesses in Canada,” he said.
“What OpenAI is doing violates existing laws. You don’t need a specific AI law.”