Emmerich Newspapers-led group of US local outlets sues Microsoft and OpenAI over AI training use of articles

Emmerich Newspapers, a privately owned newspaper chain in Mississippi (also serving Louisiana and Arkansas), filed a copyright lawsuit with co-plaintiffs Ojai Media, Coopwood Publishing, Coopwood Magazine, Coopwood Media Group and Coopwood Newspapers against Microsoft and OpenAI.

The complaint alleges the two companies systematically used tens of thousands of the plaintiffs' copyrighted articles without permission or compensation to train AI models, circumvented paywalls and other access restrictions, and stripped embedded copyright-management information (author credits, publication names, copyright notices and terms of use) before training. The plaintiffs claim their material has been reproduced near-verbatim and accuse the companies of sounding the "death knell for local journalism."

They seek damages, restitution, and an injunction requiring removal of their copyrighted works from model training data. All infringement claims are allegations in a filed complaint; no court finding is reported. Microsoft was contacted for comment.