Encyclopedia Britannica and its subsidiary Merriam-Webster have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the artificial intelligence company of using copyrighted materials to train its ChatGPT model without authorization. According to the legal complaint, OpenAI allegedly copied nearly 100,000 articles, encyclopedia entries, and dictionary entries from the publishers' online sources.
The lawsuit claims that ChatGPT's responses often contain "verbatim or near-verbatim reproductions" of content from Britannica and Merriam-Webster, which the publishers argue risks diverting traffic from their own websites. The complaint alleges copyright infringement in three ways: large-scale copying of protected material, using that content to train AI models, and generating outputs that closely resemble the original content.
Additionally, the publishers accuse OpenAI of trademark infringement, claiming that ChatGPT sometimes references Britannica in ways that could create the impression of authorized use. The companies are seeking financial damages and a court order to stop the alleged unauthorized use of their materials.
OpenAI has reportedly contested the allegations, stating that its models are trained on publicly available data and that such use falls under fair use principles. The lawsuit represents another legal challenge in the growing debate over AI training data and intellectual property rights in the generative AI era.