MediaNews Group, Tribune Publishing, and The New York Daily News have sharpened their copyright lawsuit against OpenAI, filing an amended complaint Friday that accuses Microsoft of actively encouraging users to plagiarize journalists' work. The new filing escalates a legal battle that pits traditional newsrooms against the AI industry's use of published content - a fight with direct consequences for writers' livelihoods and copyright protections.
Microsoft's role drawn into the case
The amended suit, submitted in Manhattan federal court, alleges Microsoft "intentionally induced OpenAI's infringement by actively encouraging OpenAI's infringement." The publishers claim that rather than merely providing the infrastructure for ChatGPT, Microsoft went further by egging on users to lift and republish entire passages of reporting.
Lawyers for the outlets point to a specific exchange involving Daily News Mets beat writer Abbey Mastracco. A user seeking content about "what the Mets see in Julio Teheran" received a response from ChatGPT that said, according to court papers, "feel free to incorporate this information into your blog." The publishers argue this is a clear instance of an AI tool prompting wholesale reuse of copyrighted material.
ChatGPT and the instruction to republish
The Mastracco example is central to the amended complaint. The publishers contend that ChatGPT not only surfaces journalistic work in response to user prompts but, in some interactions, explicitly invites its redistribution. That, the publishers say, undercuts the market for original reporting by making it effortless to reproduce without permission or payment.
The suit originally focused on OpenAI's alleged mass ingestion of copyrighted articles to train its models. The latest version adds a layer: that Microsoft, as a major investor and partner, allegedly fueled the infringement rather than curbing it. OpenAI and Microsoft have both denied wrongdoing in the litigation. The Daily News reached out for comment on the new filing.
Publishers warn of subscriber and licensing damage
The complaint describes financial harm in blunt terms. "Defendants' illegal use and distribution of the Publishers' Works damages the Publishers' ability to attract and retain paying subscribers while at the same time eroding the Publishers' ability to engage in and maintain licensing agreements with other publishers of news and information," it says. The outlets argue that when AI summarises or rewrites their stories, it siphons away readers who might otherwise pay for access or data licensing partners who might have struck content deals.
Frank Pine, executive editor at MediaNews Group, said the evidence in the amended filing speaks for itself. "The evidence continues to prove that OpenAI stole our journalism to help them become among the world's most valuable companies, and this updated legal filing is intended to shine the spotlight on precisely why they are liable for billions and billions of dollars in damages," Pine said.
The publishers' legal team also moved Friday to drop one claim from the suit - contributory copyright infringement - a procedural adjustment that narrows the case but does not weaken its core allegations, according to a person familiar with the filing.
Why this matters for writers
For freelance reporters, staff journalists, and copywriters, the case tests whether AI firms can freely mine published work and serve it back to users without a licence. A win for the publishers would reinforce that writing online is not a public dataset for machines; a loss would deepen the precedent that scraping and rephrasing are fair game. The outcome will influence how platforms and newsrooms structure content deals, and it may shape the tools that millions of workers rely on every day - a tension at the center of the wider AI for Writers discussion.
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