Digital publisher Ziff Davis is suing OpenAI, accusing it of widespread copyright infringement.
The publisher – which lists IGN, Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, Digital Foundry, Rock Paper Shotgun, VG247 and Hookshot (which operatesNintendolife, PushSquare, PureXbox and Time Extension) among its brands – sued the ChatGPT company on Thursday, theNew York Timesreports.
The lawsuit, which was filed in OpenAI’s registered state of Delaware, says the company “intentionally and relentlessly reproduced exact copies and created derivatives of Ziff Davis works”, and by doing so infringed on its copyrights and diluted its trademarks.
According to the lawsuit, it’s claimed that OpenAI used content from Ziff Davis sites to train AI modes for its ChatGPT chatbot, and did so “knowing that they violate Ziff Davis’s intellectual property rights and the law”.
The New York Times, citing two sources familiar with the case, reports that Ziff Davis is seeking damages of “at least hundreds of millions of dollars”.
A spokesperson for OpenAI told the publication that its use of copyrighted material was protected because it’s “grounded in fair use”.
“ChatGPT helps enhance human creativity, advance scientific discovery and medical research, and enable hundreds of millions of people to improve their daily lives,” they said.
Other publishers and content platforms, including the New York Times itself, have also been suing OpenAI for allegedly stealing their content. Earlier this month a US judicial panel in New York consolidated several copyright cases brought against OpenAI by the likes of the New York Times, journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, comedian Sarah Silverman and other writers including John Grisham, George R. R. Martin and Jonathan Franzen.
Other companies have chosen not to take on OpenAI in court, and have instead decided to make a deal with the company and license their content out for a large sum.
In December, Future Publishing – whose brands include Edge,PC Gamer, GamesRadar and Retro Gamer – announced a strategic partnership tobring content from Future’s 200+ media brands to ChatGPT.
“ChatGPT users will be able to access content from across Future’s portfolio, with attribution and links to the full original articles for transparency and further information,” a statement from OpenAI read at the time.
