Encyclopedia Britannica Sues OpenAI Over Alleged Unauthorized Use of Reference Content

Encyclopedia Britannica and its Merriam-Webster subsidiary have sued OpenAI in Manhattan federal court, alleging unauthorized use of nearly 100,000 copyrighted articles to train AI models like ChatGPT. The lawsuit claims OpenAI's AI-generated summaries divert users from Britannica's websites and reproduce content nearly verbatim. Britannica also accuses OpenAI of trademark infringement and false attribution in AI outputs. OpenAI maintains its models use publicly available data under fair use. This case is part of broader legal disputes over AI training and copyright.