"ChatGPT then provides narrative responses to user queries that often contain verbatim or near-verbatim reproductions, summaries, or abridgements of original content, including plaintiffs' copyrighted works."
"The complaint, filed on 13 March 2026 (case no. 1:2026cv02097), accuses OpenAI of using nearly 100,000 of Britannica's online articles as training inputs for its AI language models. The full extent of the copying, the complaint acknowledges, is only known to OpenAI itself."
"Britannica, which owns Merriam-Webster as a subsidiary, argues that the law does not permit OpenAI's systematic disregard for its intellectual property rights and calls on it to account for the substantial harm it is causing and the profits it is reaping through that infringement."
Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster filed a copyright and trademark lawsuit against OpenAI in March 2026, alleging that ChatGPT was trained on approximately 100,000 of Britannica's online articles without authorization. The complaint asserts that ChatGPT generates responses containing verbatim or near-verbatim reproductions of the publishers' copyrighted content, causing material harm to both companies. The lawsuit mirrors a similar case filed against Perplexity six months earlier and is structured around copyright infringement claims under the Copyright Act of 1976, which protects authors' exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute their works. Britannica argues OpenAI systematically disregarded intellectual property rights and demands accountability for profits gained through infringement.
#copyright-infringement #ai-training-data #openai-lawsuit #intellectual-property-rights #content-publishers
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