Encyclopedia Britannica Takes Legal Action Against OpenAI Over ChatGPT’s Use of Its Content

On Friday, a lawsuit was filed against OpenAI by Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster, claiming that the company utilized their copyrighted material to train its AI, subsequently generating responses that closely resemble their content. Britannica asserts that OpenAI has repeatedly copied its material without authorization, stating that “GPT-4 has ‘memorized’ much of Britannica’s copyrighted content and can produce near-verbatim excerpts on request. These memorized instances are unauthorized copies used to train their models, including GPT-4.”

The lawsuit presents side-by-side comparisons of responses from OpenAI’s models and Britannica’s text, highlighting instances where entire passages match exactly. Britannica further alleges that OpenAI has been “cannibalizing” its web traffic by creating responses that “substitute, or directly compete” with its content, rather than guiding users to its website like a conventional search engine would.

This case adds to a growing trend of copyright lawsuits from publishers targeting AI companies in recent years. The New York Times has made similar allegations in its ongoing legal battle with OpenAI, claiming that the AI firm has copied large amounts of its copyrighted material. In September, Anthropic resolved a class action lawsuit for using copyrighted books to train its AI models, resulting in a $1.5 billion settlement for the authors of those books.