The Lawsuit

USA Today Co. and several of its publications filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI in Manhattan federal court on October 8, 2026. The plaintiffs allege that OpenAI used the publications' content to train large language models without permission. Reuters reported the filing on October 8.

According to the complaint, OpenAI copied hundreds of thousands of articles owned by the publications without the owners' permission to train ChatGPT. The plaintiffs' position is that this was not about isolated copying, but about a systematic practice that was an integral part of the model training process.

The central allegation in the lawsuit is copyright infringement. The publications say they never consented to their materials being used to train artificial intelligence models, yet OpenAI used those materials for exactly that purpose.

ChatGPT is OpenAI's large language model-based product; the lawsuit alleges the publications' materials were copied in the process of training it. As Reuters writes, the subject of the case is the use of the publications' content to train large language models; the plaintiffs maintain that this use infringes copyright.

Manhattan federal court falls within the jurisdiction of the U.S. federal court for the Southern District of New York; the case will be heard there. The complaint characterizes OpenAI's actions as a violation of copyright law.

Case Details

The case is formally named USA Today Co v. OpenAI Foundation. It is being heard in the U.S. federal court for the Southern District of New York under case number 1:26-cv-08892. According to Bloomberg Law, reporting on October 8, the plaintiffs hold the copyrights to 19 publications, including Indy Star, The Arizona Republic, and Detroit Free Press.

This means the suit was brought not in the name of a single publication, but on behalf of a group of publications owned by USA Today Co. Among the 19 publications whose rights the plaintiffs claim, Indy Star, The Arizona Republic, and Detroit Free Press are listed by name.

The 19 publications are the total whose materials the plaintiffs claim copyright over; the three named ones — Indy Star, The Arizona Republic, and Detroit Free Press — are cited individually in the Bloomberg Law report. In other words, the plaintiffs claim ownership of the copyrights in these publications' materials, and the alleged violation of those rights is the subject of the suit.

The complaint was filed on October 8; Reuters, Bloomberg Law, and The Verge all reported on the case that same day. The filing date is October 8, 2026, and the case has entered the federal court's docket as of that date. The case name identifies the parties: the plaintiff is USA Today Co., the defendant OpenAI Foundation.

The Plaintiffs' Demands

USA Today Co. is seeking monetary damages from OpenAI of more than $250 million. In addition, the plaintiffs are asking the court to issue an injunction barring the continuation of the alleged infringement.

The demands thus fall into two tracks: first, compensation for material harm; second, an injunctive order aimed at stopping OpenAI's practice of unauthorized use of the plaintiffs' materials. As Reuters reports, the $250 million figure is cited as the minimum sum the plaintiffs are seeking — meaning the damages could be higher.

The damages claim is tied to the volume of copied material: the lawsuit alleges that hundreds of thousands of articles were copied without authorization. The $250 million figure is presented as the lower bound of the compensation the plaintiffs seek. The injunction request forms the second pillar of the case: the plaintiffs want not only monetary compensation but an end to the practice. The court order the plaintiffs are requesting is injunctive in nature: it is aimed at restraining OpenAI from continuing the disputed practice.

The plaintiffs are asking the court, as Reuters writes, to award damages "in excess of $250 million" and to issue an injunction aimed at stopping the alleged infringement. (Source: Reuters)

The Wave of Lawsuits Continues

The Verge covered the filing on October 8. The publication called the case the latest in a wave of copyright lawsuits that media outlets have brought against AI labs.

That framing makes it possible to see USA Today's suit not as an isolated incident, but as the next link in a growing chain of legal disputes between media companies and AI developers. According to The Verge, such lawsuits have been multiplying recently, and the USA Today case is the newest manifestation of that trend.

The fact that the complaint was filed on October 8 was covered that same day by Reuters, Bloomberg Law, and The Verge — meaning the case became public the day it was filed. That all three outlets — Reuters, Bloomberg Law, and The Verge — covered the case on October 8 shows the suit immediately drew media attention.