A group of news publishers, including major Canadian newspapers, has filed a lawsuit against the AI firm Anthropic in an Ontario court. Postmedia, Torstar, The Globe and Mail, and The Canadian Press allege that Anthropic violated their copyright by using their content to create its advanced language AI model named Claude.
The publishers claim that Anthropic has benefited financially from its AI models without obtaining proper licenses from them. The lawsuit, initiated on October 6 and reported by Cartt.ca, highlights that Anthropic has not officially responded to the allegations, and their validity is yet to be proven in court.
According to the statement of claim, Anthropic violated the terms of service of the news media websites and bypassed security measures intended to prevent content copying. The publishers emphasize their significant role in producing a substantial amount of Canada’s journalistic content, catering to millions of readers.
The claim states that Anthropic extracted vast amounts of text data from the internet and the publishers’ websites through ‘scraping’ techniques without permission. This content was then utilized by Anthropic to develop its AI models, which are continuously updated based on user interactions.
Additionally, the publishers, in collaboration with CBC/Radio-Canada, have previously filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in 2024, which remains unresolved. Similar legal actions have been taken by news organizations globally against tech companies for unauthorized use of their content for AI training purposes.
The New York Times, for instance, sued OpenAI for copyright infringement, with the Justice Department recently supporting the tech company in a related case. Despite widespread concerns and legal challenges, Anthropic allegedly continues its unauthorized practices, as per the claim.
For more information, refer to the original source.
