Ziff Davis, which owns popular digital platforms like CNET, PCMag, IGN, and Everyday Health, is taking legal action against OpenAI, claiming copyright violations.
This was first reported by The New York Times. In their lawsuit, Ziff Davis accuses OpenAI of deliberately creating “exact copies” of their content without permission.
They also allege that OpenAI trained its AI models on their material, despite Ziff Davis instructing web crawlers not to access their data through a robots.txt file. Additionally, they claim OpenAI removed copyright details from the content it collected.
Ziff Davis manages over 45 media brands and employs more than 3,800 people, making it one of the largest publishers to sue OpenAI to date. The company states that it publishes nearly 2 million articles annually and receives over 292 million visits each month.
While some media companies, such as Vox Media, The Associated Press, The Atlantic, The Financial Times, and The Washington Post, have established licensing agreements with OpenAI, Ziff Davis is joining others like The New York Times and several media firms in suing OpenAI for copyright infringement.
Ziff Davis claims that OpenAI has “copied, reproduced, and stored” its content to generate responses in ChatGPT. They assert that they have found hundreds of exact copies of their articles in just a small sample of OpenAI’s publicly available WebText dataset.
The company is requesting that the court prevent OpenAI from using its content and destroy any datasets or models that contain their material.
In response, OpenAI spokesperson Jason Deutrom stated that ChatGPT enhances creativity, supports scientific progress, and helps millions improve their daily lives. He emphasized that their models are built on publicly available data and adhere to fair use principles. Ziff Davis chose not to comment further.
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