The dictionary sues OpenAI | TechCrunch

"ChatGPT starves web publishers like [Britannica] of revenue by generating responses to users' queries that substitute, and directly compete with, the content from publishers like [Britannica]. Britannica also alleges ChatGPT's hallucinations jeopardize the public's continued access to high-quality and trustworthy online information."

"Britannica, which owns Merriam-Webster, retains the copyright to nearly 100,000 online articles, which have been scraped and used to train OpenAI's LLMs without permission, the publisher alleges in the lawsuit. Britannica also accuses OpenAI of violating copyright laws when it generates outputs that contain full or partial verbatim reproductions of its content."

"Britannica joins a number of other publishers and writers in pursuing legal action against OpenAI over copyright issues. The New York Times, Ziff Davis (owner of Mashable, CNET, IGN, PC Mag, and others), and more than a dozen newspapers across the US and Canada have sued OpenAI."

Encyclopedia Britannica filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, claiming the company committed massive copyright infringement by scraping and using nearly 100,000 of its articles to train large language models without permission. The complaint alleges violations occur when ChatGPT generates outputs containing full or partial verbatim reproductions of Britannica's content and when OpenAI uses articles in its retrieval augmented generation workflow. Britannica also claims OpenAI violates the Lanham Act by generating false hallucinations attributed to the publisher. The lawsuit argues ChatGPT reduces publisher revenue by substituting for original content and threatens public access to trustworthy information. Britannica joins multiple publishers and writers, including The New York Times and numerous newspapers, in pursuing legal action against OpenAI over copyright issues.

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