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Montreal French-language news organization La Presse announced Monday that it has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, for unauthorized use of its IP. 

La Presse alleges that OpenAI has scraped thousands of articles from its website to train its AI models, without consent or payment.

The lawsuit, filed in Quebec Superior Court, alleges that ChatGPT profits from the investments La Presse makes into producing its news content without bearing any of the costs, and that the platform’s success is predicated on “repeated acts of copyright infringement” on La Presse‘s content, as well as that of other media sources.

“La Presse‘s mission is to deliver high-quality news and information, free of charge and accessible to everyone,” said Patrick Bourbeau, VP of legal affairs for La Presse, which went from print to a digital-only model in 2017 and has operated as a non-profit since 2018. “Copyright is a foundational element in our journalists’ and our non-profit organization’s ability to produce thorough, rigorous reporting, which is a pillar of our democracy.”

The allegations have not been tested in court, and OpenAI has not yet filed its response.

The legal action joins another Canadian lawsuit filed in Nov. 2024 in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice by a coalition of Canadian media organizations that includes CBC/Radio-Canada, the Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press, Postmedia and Torstar. Earlier this month, an Ontario court ruled that the case can proceed, following a motion from OpenAI asking to suspend or dismiss the case.

OpenAI faces similar lawsuits in the U.S. from publications including the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, among others, as well as from the Authors Guild, which represents thousands of writers – with names like George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult and John Grisham among them.