Merriam-Webster and Encyclopedia Britannica have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that the company used nearly 100,000 of their copyrighted articles to train its large language models without permission. This case highlights the ongoing legal debate over the use of copyrighted materials in AI training datasets. The outcome could set a significant precedent for how intellectual property law applies to the development of generative AI.
Background
The use of copyrighted materials to train AI models has become a major legal and ethical battleground, with numerous publishers and creators filing lawsuits against AI companies. This case involves two of the world's most authoritative reference works.
- Source
- TechCrunch
- Published
- Mar 17, 2026 at 01:38 AM
- Score
- 6.0 / 10