According to the Globe and Mail, the legal action, filed in Ontario, asserts,

News media companies invest hundreds of millions of dollars into reporting Canadians’ critical stories, undertaking investigations and original reporting, and distributing media in both official languages in every province and territory across this country. The content that Canadian news media companies produce is fact-checked, sourced and reliable, producing trusted news and information by, for, and about Canadians. This requires significant investment, and the content produced by news media companies is protected by copyright.

News Media Companies welcome technological innovations. However, all participants must follow the law, and any use of intellectual property must be on fair terms.

OpenAI regularly breaches copyright and online terms of use by scraping large swaths of content from Canadian media to help develop its products, such as ChatGPT. OpenAI is capitalizing and profiting from the use of this content, without getting permission or compensating content owners.

“Canada’s leading news media companies launch legal action against OpenAI,” November 29, 2024

Parties to the suit are Torstar, Postmedia, The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press, and CBC/Radio-Canada.

Specialty information

The problem is especially galling for Canadian media because the information they provide — scarfed up for free by the OpenAI bots — is often specialty information.

Anyone can report on the American election, which offered vast opportunities and received vast coverage. But what about the story on whether or not the polar bear population is declining Canada’s far north? (Apparently it isn’t.)

Sure, anyone can find the information on the internet. But who lives up there and goes out onto the pack ice to actually create the information?

The problem with the chatbots is that the information they provide is treated as a free service of nature when it actually isn’t. The producers of the information are not being compensated and, in the long run, that will affect the quality of the product.

Expect more lawsuits of this type against chatbot developers.