# Seattle Times, Newsday Sue OpenAI and Microsoft Over AI Scraping

By Alex Index · 2026-09-07 · Licensing & Legal · https://datacommenter.com/seattle-times-newsday-sue-openai-and-microsoft-over-ai-scraping/
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> The Seattle Times Co. and Newsday filed a joint copyright suit against OpenAI and Microsoft in the Southern District of New York on September 4, 2026, seeking damages and destruction…

Original reporting: [Gagadget.com](https://gagadget.com/en/724853-seattle-times-and-newsday-sue-openai-and-microsoft-over-ai-training-data/)
_AI-assisted commentary, editorially reviewed. Quoted excerpts belong to the original outlet._

Two more news organizations have sued OpenAI and Microsoft for training AI models on their journalism, but the case is less a copy of the New York Times’ 2023 suit than a stress test of two things the earlier case hasn’t yet resolved: whether courts will order destruction of training data, and whether Washington will keep tilting the field toward AI developers before any of this reaches trial.

What’s independently established, corroborated across GeekWire, TechCrunch and Mashable: the complaint was filed September 4, 2026, in SDNY; it seeks unspecified damages plus destruction of any datasets or models incorporating the papers’ work; and Microsoft Philanthropies, alongside OpenAI, jointly funded a $10 million Lenfest Institute AI fellowship in 2024 that included both the Seattle Times and Newsday as inaugural participants — a funding relationship GeekWire flagged as making this suit unusually awkward. Also established, per Mashable and GeekWire: the Trump administration’s Department of Justice filed a Statement of Interest in the parallel New York Times case last week arguing that a publisher win would threaten AI development and national security. What remains unproven is the plaintiffs’ own evidentiary case — that Microsoft and OpenAI “methodically scraped” hundreds of thousands of articles, stripped copyright management information, and did so knowingly bypassing paywalls. Those are allegations in the complaint, not adjudicated facts, and OpenAI’s public line — that it trains only on publicly available material under fair use — remains untested by any court.

> The suit’s real subplot is that the same company using its own newsroom’s content to train chatbots also funded that newsroom’s AI fellowship — which is less a contradiction than the current business model for local journalism.

The most useful number in the filing isn’t a damages figure at all: according to GeekWire’s review of the complaint, OpenAI’s publicly disclosed licensing payments to the Associated Press, News Corp and Axel Springer already top $300 million, a figure the plaintiffs cite as the market rate they say they were denied. Meanwhile the Seattle Times Union’s statement — supporting the lawsuit but noting the company won’t guarantee AI won’t replace non-reporter newsroom jobs — is a genuine tension for the industry-wide narrative that these suits exist purely to protect journalism.

The evidence that would actually move this forward isn’t in this filing. Judge Sidney Stein is expected to rule on cross-motions for summary judgment in the consolidated New York Times case within weeks, per TechCrunch, and that decision — on whether training constitutes fair use — will functionally set the terms for every subsequent suit, including this one, before Newsday and the Seattle Times ever reach discovery.

> Microsoft previously funded journalism projects at the Seattle Times — a fact that makes the lawsuit an awkward moment for the corporate-investment-as-partnership model both companies have promoted.
> — [Gagadget.com](https://gagadget.com/en/724853-seattle-times-and-newsday-sue-openai-and-microsoft-over-ai-training-data/)

[Read the full story at Gagadget.com →](https://gagadget.com/en/724853-seattle-times-and-newsday-sue-openai-and-microsoft-over-ai-training-data/)

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Cite this analysis: https://datacommenter.com/seattle-times-newsday-sue-openai-and-microsoft-over-ai-scraping/
Cite primary facts: https://gagadget.com/en/724853-seattle-times-and-newsday-sue-openai-and-microsoft-over-ai-training-data/
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