Encyclopedia Britannica and its Merriam-Webster subsidiary have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in Manhattan federal court, alleging that the artificial intelligence company misused their reference materials to train its flagship chatbot, ChatGPT. The complaint, filed on Friday, claims that OpenAI “cannibalized” Britannica’s web traffic by producing AI-generated summaries of its online articles, encyclopedia entries, and dictionary content.
According to the lawsuit, OpenAI unlawfully copied nearly 100,000 Britannica articles to train its GPT large language models. The complaint asserts that ChatGPT generates outputs that are “near-verbatim” reproductions of Britannica’s content, diverting users who would otherwise visit the company’s websites. Britannica also accused OpenAI of trademark infringement, alleging that the company falsely implies it has permission to reproduce Britannica’s material and even cites the reference work in AI-generated “hallucinations.” The plaintiffs are seeking an unspecified amount in monetary damages and a court order to stop the alleged infringement.
An OpenAI spokesperson responded on Monday, stating that the company’s models “empower innovation, and are trained on publicly available data and grounded in fair use.” Representatives and attorneys for Britannica did not immediately comment.
The lawsuit is part of a wave of legal challenges from copyright holders—including authors and news organizations—who claim tech companies are using their work to train AI systems without permission. Britannica previously filed a similar lawsuit against artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI last year, which remains ongoing. The outcome of these cases could have far-reaching implications for AI development, copyright law, and the publishing industry.
