Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster Sue OpenAI

Core Viewpoint - Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, claiming that the company used their copyrighted content to train its AI models without permission [1][2]. Group 1: Lawsuit Details - The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI's ChatGPT reproduces Britannica's copyrighted content in its responses, often verbatim or nearly verbatim [2]. - It is claimed that ChatGPT's summaries of Britannica's content are cannibalizing traffic and that OpenAI reproduces web publishers' copyrighted content without authorization or remuneration [2]. Group 2: Industry Context - The lawsuit reflects a growing trend of content owners suing AI companies for copyright infringement [2]. - Anthropic and Meta previously won lawsuits under the fair use exception, allowing them to use copyrighted content without permission [3]. - Britannica has also filed a lawsuit against Perplexity, which is still pending [3].