Five Canadian news media companies have initiated legal action against OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, accusing the company of copyright infringement and violating online terms of use on 29 November.

According to a recent report by Reuters, the plaintiffs —Torstar, Postmedia, The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press, and CBC/Radio-Canada — filed the lawsuit on Friday, alleging that OpenAI has been scraping their content without authorisation or compensation to train its AI models.

In a joint statement, the media outlets said, "Journalism is in the public interest. OpenAI using other companies' journalism for their own commercial gain is not. It's illegal."

OpenAI has already signed a few agreements with some media organizations. In July 2023, OpenAI signed a licensing agreement with The Associated Press. In 2024, the company also reached agreements with Condé Nast and NewsCorp. OpenAI also had a legal battle with The New York Times.

Earlier this month, Elon Musk expanded a separate lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the company and Microsoft of attempting to monopolise the generative AI market by sidelining competitors.