OpenAI and Microsoft are facing an unprecedented wave of copyright lawsuits from news publishers across multiple continents, with the legal battle expanding beyond the US to include the first Spanish-language publisher to challenge the tech giants. Editorial Perfil, an Argentine publisher that owns the Perfil newspaper and English-language Buenos Aires Times, filed suit against both companies on August 26, 2026, alleging copyright infringement and unfair competition through unauthorized use of journalistic content. The lawsuit marks a significant escalation in the global dispute over how AI companies train their models on published news without permission or compensation.

Why Are News Publishers Suing OpenAI and Microsoft?

The core complaint from publishers worldwide centers on a straightforward grievance: AI companies have scraped and used copyrighted journalistic content to train their models and power search features without licensing agreements or payment. Editorial Perfil's director of digital, Agustino Fontevecchia, explained the publisher's frustration after more than a year of failed negotiations.

"We have been preparing this lawsuit for over a year after unsuccessfully attempting to contact OpenAI's teams to seek an agreement like the one they signed, for example, with Grupo Prisa in Spain in 2024, or even the one they reached with Folha and Grupo UOL in Brazil a couple of months ago," Fontevecchia stated.

Agustino Fontevecchia, Director of Digital at Editorial Perfil

The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI and Microsoft's products, including Bing, Copilot, Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Azure AI, draw on journalistic content to answer user queries directly, reducing the need for users to visit news sites and thereby cutting into traffic, ad revenue, and the financial sustainability of professional journalism.

How Widespread Is the Legal Battle Against AI Companies?

The copyright disputes have grown into a complex web of litigation and licensing deals. More than 30 US local newspapers collectively owning around 400 titles have sued OpenAI and Microsoft over unauthorized scraping and use of their content in ChatGPT and Copilot. Around a dozen claims led by The New York Times have been brought against OpenAI since the end of 2023, while approximately six cases have been filed against Perplexity, another AI company facing similar accusations.

The legal landscape includes several key players and disputes:

• Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster: Both reference publishers have sued both OpenAI and Perplexity over unauthorized use of their copyrighted material in AI training
• Reddit's Case: A federal judge largely rejected Perplexity and data-scraping supplier SerpApi's attempt to dismiss Reddit's lawsuit, finding it plausible that Perplexity conspired with at least one data scraper to bypass access controls and obtain Reddit's material
• News Corp's Actions: The Wall Street Journal owner is suing privacy-focused browser Brave, alleging it scraped and sold copyrighted News Corp content to AI companies before March 2025
• CNN and BBC: CNN sued Perplexity over alleged theft of copyrighted content, while the BBC threatened legal action against Perplexity, claiming the AI startup's default model was trained using BBC content

What Deals Have Publishers Actually Signed?

Despite the litigation, some publishers have negotiated licensing agreements with AI companies. The Brazilian newspaper Folha settled its lawsuit against OpenAI by signing an agreement with the ChatGPT creator, shortly after announcing a separate deal with Google. News Corp signed a deal worth up to $50 million per year for Meta to use its content in AI products, while the Wall Street Journal owner also reached an agreement with Microsoft.

Other publishers have struck deals with various AI platforms. The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Financial Times signed agreements with Google, while The Independent, LA Times, and Lee Enterprises made deals with Perplexity. Microsoft has signed its first deal for news content in the Asia Pacific region with Australia's Nine Entertainment, and Reach, the publisher of Mirror and Express, signed a usage-based deal for its content to be used in Amazon's Nova AI model and Alexa assistant.

Steps Publishers Are Taking to Protect Their Content

As the legal battles intensify, publishers are employing multiple strategies to defend their intellectual property and secure fair compensation:

• Coordinated Legal Action: Publishers are filing lawsuits individually and in groups, with more than 30 US local newspapers joining forces to challenge OpenAI and Microsoft simultaneously
• Negotiated Licensing Agreements: Publishers like Folha and News Corp are pursuing direct negotiations with AI companies to establish licensing deals that provide compensation for content use
• Technical Protections: Publishers are implementing paywalls and access controls, though AI companies and data scrapers have allegedly found ways to bypass these protections
• International Coordination: Publishers across multiple countries, from Argentina to Brazil to the UK, are pursuing similar legal strategies to establish precedent globally

Fontevecchia emphasized Editorial Perfil's commitment to the fight, stating that the lawsuit is planned to be "the first of several" and that the publisher is "convinced of the economic, cultural, and symbolic value of the journalism we produce". The publisher acknowledged that quality journalism is expensive but expressed readiness to "fight whatever battles are necessary to defend the future of our industry and profession".

Fontevecchia

The expansion of copyright litigation to Argentina represents a turning point in the global AI content dispute. As more publishers worldwide recognize the value of their content to AI training, the legal and commercial landscape for AI companies continues to shift. OpenAI and Microsoft now face the prospect of navigating copyright claims across multiple jurisdictions, each with its own legal standards and enforcement mechanisms. The outcome of these cases could fundamentally reshape how AI companies source and license content for training their models.