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The Seattle Times Co., joined by Newsday, filed a copyright lawsuit naming Microsoft and OpenAI and alleging the companies scraped “hundreds of thousands” of the newspapers’ articles to train generative AI models. The complaint seeks financial damages and the destruction of any training datasets and models built with that content, and cites an example where ChatGPT reproduced an 88-word verbatim passage from Seattle Times reporting on the Boeing 737 MAX crashes. The filing also notes Microsoft Philanthropies and OpenAI jointly funded a $10 million Lenfest Institute AI fellowship that included the two papers, and it places this case beside earlier suits such as The New York Times’ 2023 action.
Like a snake eating its own tail, GenAI that is trained on painstakingly researched, expensive-to-produce content threatens to destroy the very news organizations by competing directly with them through AI-generated substitutive content.
the complaint
Key takeaways
- Who sued: The Seattle Times Co. and Newsday filed a copyright suit against Microsoft and OpenAI.
- Scale alleged: The complaint alleges the defendants scraped “hundreds of thousands” of articles to build training sets.
- Specific example: The suit cites ChatGPT reproducing an 88-word verbatim stretch from Seattle Times reporting on the Boeing 737 MAX crashes.
- Funding overlap: Microsoft Philanthropies and OpenAI jointly funded a $10 million Lenfest Institute AI fellowship that included the Seattle Times and Newsday.
- Industry context: The complaint says publicly disclosed terms for three publisher deals top $300 million and notes OpenAI has licensed content from outlets including The Associated Press.
Table of contents
What the complaint says and the relief it seeks
The complaint, filed in federal court and available on a public docket, accuses Microsoft and OpenAI of scraping paywalled and freely available site content to assemble model training data without permission or payment. It asks the court for monetary damages and for any training datasets and models built with the plaintiffs’ content to be destroyed. The filing quotes specific exchanges where the model returned long verbatim passages from Seattle Times and Newsday articles; one highlighted instance is an 88-word verbatim reproduction of Pulitzer-winning Seattle Times coverage when a user supplied the original headline and web address.
The suit frames the alleged conduct as an existential threat to journalism, saying that AI trained on proprietary reporting could “compete directly with” the newsrooms that created that reporting. The complaint names both companies and links the claimed copying to downstream generations of substitutive content. The plaintiffs provide sample prompts and outputs from chatbots to support their infringement theory and to show how the models reproduce reporting in ways they say go beyond fair use.
Microsoft ties and the wider licensing landscape
The case is notable because Microsoft appears in two roles: as a defendant and as a funder of some Seattle Times projects. The filing notes Microsoft Philanthropies and OpenAI jointly funded a $10 million Lenfest Institute AI fellowship in 2024 that included the Seattle Times and Newsday among participating newsrooms, and the Seattle Times says it maintains editorial independence despite that support.
The complaint also places this lawsuit in a broader commercial context: OpenAI has struck licensing deals with a range of publishers, including The Associated Press, News Corp and Axel Springer, and the filing says publicly disclosed terms for three of those deals top $300 million. Publishers that did not reach licensing agreements have pursued litigation instead, and the Seattle Times and Newsday suit joins a wave of publisher actions challenging model training practices.
How this fits into the consolidated litigation and next steps
The Seattle Times and Newsday filing arrives alongside other publisher suits consolidated in the Southern District of New York. Those consolidated plaintiffs include The New York Times, which sued Microsoft and OpenAI in 2023; that case has drawn a U.S. Department of Justice brief this week that argued a publishers’ victory could stifle U.S. AI development. In the SDNY round, publishers and the defendants have already moved for summary judgment, making judicial rulings likely to shape industry practice.
This Seattle suit seeks injunctive relief and destruction of models built with the allegedly infringing content, which would be an uncommon remedy and could have structural effects on how vendors handle training data. The filing is now part of active litigation; Microsoft has said it is surprised by the suit and invited dialogue, while the plaintiffs press claims in court. The filing and its exhibits were posted to a public docket, as first reported by GeekWire.
| Publisher | Role in litigation or dealmaking | Noted figure or detail | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Seattle Times Co. | Plaintiff | alleges scraping of "hundreds of thousands" of articles | Seeks damages and destruction of datasets and models |
| Newsday | Plaintiff | joined Seattle Times in the suit | Included in the Lenfest fellowship cited in the filing |
| The New York Times | Earlier plaintiff | filed suit in 2023; DOJ brief filed in the case | Its case is consolidated with other publishers in SDNY |
| Associated Press | Licensing partner | listed among outlets with OpenAI deals | Publicly disclosed deal terms not detailed in this filing |
How the case could influence publishers and AI firms
The case for
- A publisher victory could force model builders to adopt consent-first training pipelines or accelerate licensing negotiations with newsrooms.
- Public rulings in favor of publishers would clarify the boundaries of permissible training data and could prompt standardized commercial deals similar to those OpenAI has struck with multiple outlets.
The case against
- A court ruling for Microsoft and OpenAI would sustain broad use of web-scraped corpora and could limit publishers’ leverage to extract licensing fees.
- Unclear legal standards or split rulings across courts could prolong litigation and leave both publishers and vendors with ongoing uncertainty about permissible model training practices.
What to be careful about
- Perceived conflict: Microsoft Philanthropies’ funding of projects at the Seattle Times creates a potential optics issue as the paper sues Microsoft.
- Consolidation risk: multiple publisher suits are consolidated in the Southern District of New York, concentrating legal outcomes and raising the stakes of a single judicial decision.
- Remedy uncertainty: the plaintiffs ask for destruction of datasets and models, a remedy that courts have rarely ordered and that would create operational disruption if granted.
The bottom line
The Seattle Times Co. and Newsday have added a new front to litigation over how large language models are trained, combining copyright claims with a high-profile example of verbatim reproduction and a request for the destruction of allegedly tainted models. The filing highlights an awkward overlap between technology funders and the journalism ecosystem, and it lands amid a string of publisher suits and commercial licensing deals. Courts in the Southern District of New York and the district handling the new complaint will now have to weigh those competing commercial and public-interest considerations.
What to watch
- watch for the Seattle federal court to set an initial docket schedule for the Seattle Times and Newsday complaint; no date has been set.
- watch for rulings in the Southern District of New York consolidated publisher litigation, where summary judgment motions are pending; no decision date has been set.
- watch for any public licensing announcements from OpenAI or Microsoft about new news partnerships; no date has been set.
Frequently asked questions
What do the Seattle Times and Newsday allege?
They allege Microsoft and OpenAI scraped "hundreds of thousands" of their articles—including paywalled material—to train AI models, and they cite instances such as an 88-word verbatim reproduction of Seattle Times reporting.
What relief are the newspapers seeking?
The complaint seeks financial damages and asks the court to order the destruction of any training datasets and models built with the plaintiffs’ content.
How does this relate to The New York Times case?
The New York Times sued Microsoft and OpenAI in 2023 and that case is part of consolidated litigation in the Southern District of New York; the U.S. Department of Justice filed a brief in the NYT case arguing that publishers’ claims could stifle U.S. AI development.
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