In October 2026, a group of U.S. local news organizations, spearheaded by the Emmerich Newspaper Group, initiated legal action against Microsoft and OpenAI. They alleged that these companies had, over an extended period, unlawfully utilized copyrighted news content to train their AI models and subsequently profited from this practice. The plaintiffs are demanding compensation for damages and a court order mandating the removal of the infringing training data from the AI models. Prior to this, media entities like The Seattle Times and The New York Times had also filed comparable lawsuits, accusing the two firms of scraping news content without authorization for AI model training, which they claimed amounted to systematic copyright violations. In contrast, Microsoft and OpenAI defend their actions by citing the principle of 'fair use,' contending that the process of model training constitutes a transformative creative endeavor. As of now, the case remains under judicial review, and its verdict could potentially shape the legal parameters governing AI content training.