Encyclopedia Britannica sues OpenAI for massive copyright infringement over ChatGPT training
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[1]
The dictionary sues OpenAI | TechCrunch
Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging in its complaint that the AI giant has committed "massive copyright infringement." Britannica, which owns Merriam-Webster, retains the copyright to nearly 100,000 online articles, which have been scraped and
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Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster Sue OpenAI
Two old-school reference works are going up against a very modern tech product. Encyclopedia Britannica and its subsidiary, Merriam-Webster, have sued OpenAI, alleging the tech company used Britannica's content to train AI models without permission. The lawsuit said OpenAI's chatbot, ChatGPT, has
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Encyclopedia Britannica is suing OpenAI for allegedly 'memorizing' its content with ChatGPT
The lawsuit goes on to include examples of responses from OpenAI's models side by side with Britannica's text, in which entire passages appear to match word for word. Britannica also claims that OpenAI has been "cannibalizing" its web traffic by generating responses that "substitute, or directly
[4]
Encyclopedia Britannica Sues OpenAI Over Alleged Copyright Infringement
Encyclopedia Britannica has become the latest publisher to sue OpenAI for alleged copyright infringement. In a complaint filed last week, Britannica and its subsidiary, Merriam-Webster, have accused the ChatGPT-maker of scraping nearly 100,000 copyrighted articles for AI training. Britannica also
[5]
Encyclopedia Britannica sues OpenAI over AI training
March 16 (Reuters) - Encyclopedia Britannica and its Merriam-Webster subsidiary have sued OpenAI in Manhattan federal court for allegedly misusing their reference materials to train its artificial intelligence models. Britannica said in the complaint, opens new tab filed on Friday that
[6]
Encyclopedia Britannica sues OpenAI for copyright and trademark infringement
OpenAI has been hit with another lawsuit. This time, Encyclopedia Britannica took legal action against OpenAI, accusing the company of copyright and trademark infringements, as first reported by Reuters. More specifically, Britannica alleged that OpenAI illegally used its "copyrighted content at a
[7]
Encyclopedia Britannica Sues OpenAI Over AI Training Data. Is Grokipedia Next?
Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster say ChatGPT is 'cannibalizing' their traffic. Encyclopedia Britannica wants ChatGPT to stop copying its work. The publisher of the world's longest-running English-language encyclopedia, along with its subsidiary Merriam-Webster, is suing OpenAI,
[8]
Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster sue OpenAI
Filed in New York on 13 March 2026, the complaint accuses OpenAI of using the reference publishers' content as AI training data without permission, then generating responses that reproduce it verbatim, six months after the same companies sued Perplexity on nearly identical grounds. Encyclopedia
[9]
Encyclopedia Britannica just sued OpenAI over ChatGPT -- here's why AI training is under fire (again)
A new lawsuit filed in federal court could have major implications for the future of AI Encyclopaedia Britannica -- one of the oldest and most respected reference publishers in the world -- has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the company of using its copyrighted material to train AI
[10]
Encyclopedia Britannica Hits OpenAI With Scary Lawsuit
Can't-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Writers are often cautioned not to hit readers over the head with the dictionary. But what if it's the dictionary that's throwing blows? On Friday, Encyclopedia Britannica and its subsidiary Merriam-Webster struck back against the
[11]
The dictionaries are suing OpenAI for 'massive' copyright infringement, and say ChatGPT is starving publishers of revenue | Fortune
Britannica and Merriam-Webster have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that the AI giant has built its $730 billion company on the back of their researched content. In a filing submitted to the Southern District of New York, the companies accuse OpenAI of cannibalizing the traffic and ad
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OpenAI sued by Merriam-Webster for copyright infringement
Encyclopedia Britannica and its subsidiary Merriam-Webster have filed suit against OpenAI, alleging that the ChatGPT maker copied their copyrighted content without authorization to train its large language models, The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court last week, alleges that OpenAI used
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ChatGPT's latest enemy is the world's best dictionary and encyclopedia
The company that taught us everything wants OpenAI to pay for the lesson. It is widely acknowledged that AI companies use web articles to train their models without compensating creators or obtaining permission. Publishers such as The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Toronto Star have
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Encyclopedia Britannica is the latest giant to sue OpenAI
Encyclopedia Britannica is suing OpenAI for allegedly misusing its reference materials to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models. The Chicago-based Britannica Group runs Britannica.com and Merriam-webster.com, the online version of the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Creator of the 250-year-old
[15]
Encyclopedia Britannica Sues OpenAI Over AI Training
March 16 (Reuters) - Encyclopedia Britannica and its Merriam-Webster subsidiary have sued OpenAI in Manhattan federal court for allegedly misusing their reference materials to train its artificial intelligence models. Britannica said in the complaint filed on Friday that Microsoft-backed OpenAI
[16]
Encyclopedia Britannica sues OpenAI over AI training
Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster have sued OpenAI. They allege OpenAI used their reference materials without permission to train AI models like ChatGPT. Britannica claims OpenAI copied nearly 100,000 articles. The lawsuit states AI-generated summaries are diverting users from
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Encyclopedia Britannica Sues OpenAI Over Alleged Copyright Infringement | PYMNTS.com
By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. Britannica also alleges that OpenAI violated trademark law by making up
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Encyclopaedia Britannica Sues OpenAI: Says Its Hallucinations is Depriving People of High-Quality Content
What is more noteworthy than merely calling out illegal scraping is that the plaintiff called out OpenAI's hallucinations as a cause for people not trusting high quality content It has barely been three months since the owners of the non-profit Wikipedia first called out big tech AI companies for
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OpenAI Faces Lawsuit Over ChatGPT Content Use Claims
Encyclopædia Britannica and Merriam-Webster have sued OpenAI in a federal court in New York, accusing the company of copying their content without permission to build and run ChatGPT. The publishers say OpenAI used their copyrighted material to train its AI models, including ChatGPT's
[20]
Encyclopedia Britannica sues OpenAI over AI training
March 16 (Reuters) - Encyclopedia Britannica and its Merriam-Webster subsidiary have sued OpenAI in Manhattan federal court for allegedly misusing their reference materials to train its artificial intelligence models. Britannica said in the complaint filed on Friday that Microsoft-backed OpenAI
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Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging the AI company scraped nearly 100,000 copyrighted articles without permission to train its large language models. The publishers claim ChatGPT generates verbatim reproductions of their content, cannibalizes web traffic, and falsely attributes AI-generated hallucinations to Britannica, threatening the public's access to trustworthy information.
Encyclopedia Britannica Takes Legal Action Against OpenAI
Encyclopedia Britannica and its subsidiary Merriam-Webster have launched legal action against OpenAI in Manhattan federal court, alleging massive copyright infringement in what marks another significant challenge to AI companies' training practices
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. The lawsuit claims that OpenAI scraped nearly 100,000 copyrighted articles from the publisher's online encyclopedia and dictionary entries to train AI models, specifically its large language models (LLMs) powering ChatGPT, without authorization or compensation5
. Britannica, which retains copyright to these extensive reference materials, argues that using copyrighted content in this manner constitutes unlawful appropriation of its intellectual property1
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Source: MediaNama
ChatGPT Produces Verbatim Reproductions of Protected Content
The complaint includes side-by-side examples demonstrating how ChatGPT generates responses containing "full or partial verbatim reproductions" of Britannica's content, with entire passages appearing to match word for word
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. According to the lawsuit, "ChatGPT then provides narrative responses to user queries that often contain verbatim or near-verbatim reproductions, summaries or abridgements of original content, including [Britannica's] copyrighted works"2
. The publishers also accuse OpenAI of copyright violations when it uses their articles in ChatGPT's Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) workflow, which scans the web or other databases for newly updated information when responding to queries1
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Source: CXOToday
Cannibalizing Web Traffic and Revenue Streams
Britannica alleges that ChatGPT is cannibalizing web traffic by generating responses that "substitute, and directly compete with" the publisher's content rather than directing users to its website as traditional search engines would
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. "ChatGPT starves web publishers like [Britannica] of revenue by generating responses to users' queries that substitute, and directly compete with, the content from publishers like [Britannica]," the lawsuit states1
. The complaint emphasizes that OpenAI reproduces "web publishers' copyrighted content without authorization or remuneration," thereby limiting the traffic and revenue Britannica generates from its online properties4
.Trademark Infringement and AI-Generated Hallucinations
Beyond copyright infringement, Britannica accuses OpenAI of trademark infringement under the Lanham Act when ChatGPT produces AI-generated hallucinations and falsely attributes them to the publisher
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. According to the complaint, ChatGPT often omits portions of Britannica's explanations and wrongly attributes the publisher to incomplete and inaccurate responses4
. Use of Britannica's trademarks in this manner "deceives users into believing that the hallucinations and/or undisclosed omissions" are approved by the publisher, the complaint adds4
. Britannica warns that these hallucinations jeopardize "the public's continued access to high-quality and trustworthy online information"1
.Related Stories
Growing Wave of Publisher Lawsuits Against AI Companies
Britannica joins numerous publishers and writers pursuing legal action against OpenAI over copyright issues. The New York Times, Ziff Davis (owner of Mashable, CNET, IGN, PC Mag, and others), and more than a dozen newspapers across the US and Canada, including the Chicago Tribune, the Denver Post, the Sun-Sentinel, the Toronto Star, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation have sued OpenAI
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. A similar lawsuit Britannica filed against Perplexity remains pending1
. In September, Anthropic settled a class action lawsuit for using copyrighted books to train AI models, resulting in a $1.5 billion payout to authors3
.Fair Use Defense and Uncertain Legal Precedent
OpenAI maintains its position that using publicly available data to train AI models falls under fair use. An OpenAI spokesperson told CNET: "Our models empower innovation, and are trained on publicly available data and grounded in fair use"
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. AI companies have consistently argued that their systems make fair use of copyrighted content by transforming it into something new5
. However, strong legal precedent establishing whether using copyrighted content as training data constitutes infringement remains limited. In one notable case, Anthropic convinced federal judge William Alsup that using content as training data is transformative enough to be legal, though Alsup ruled Anthropic violated the law by illegally downloading millions of books rather than paying for them, warranting the $1.5 billion class action settlement1
. Britannica seeks damages, restitution of profits, and an injunction blocking OpenAI's alleged unlawful activities4
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Source: The Next Web
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