OpenAI faces Canadian lawsuit over ChatGPT's use of news content
Canadian news organizations sued OpenAI in Ontario, alleging that ChatGPT was trained on their copyrighted content without consent or payment. In September 2025, OpenAI sought to have the case dismissed, arguing the court lacks jurisdiction, while the publishers maintained that OpenAI operates sufficiently in Ontario to be subject to Canadian law.
What happened
Canada's major news organizations, including The Globe and Mail, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Postmedia Network Inc., Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd., Metroland Media Group, The Canadian Press and Radio-Canada, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in Ontario in November 2024 alleging that OpenAI violated copyright law by scraping proprietary news content without consent or payment to train its models including those powering ChatGPT.
At a Superior Court of Justice hearing on September 10, 2025, OpenAI argued that the Ontario court does not have jurisdiction because the company does not conduct business in the province or have offices there, and that model training and web-crawling activities occur outside Canada. The news companies' lawyers argued that OpenAI operates in Ontario in eight ways, including having customers for ChatGPT in the province and using servers in Ontario to access news websites.
Reported impact
The publishers are seeking damages, profits made from the alleged infringement, and an injunction to prevent future use of their content. Damages could total over 10 million works since 2015, with up to $20,000 per allegedly infringed work.
Index analysis
The news organizations allege that OpenAI's web crawlers accessed their websites and scraped data for commercial purposes in violation of terms of service. The publishers argue the case raises questions of national sovereignty and the importance of journalism.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.