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Digital publisher Ziff Davis is suing OpenAI for “copyright infringement, violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (‘DMCA’), unjust enrichment, and trademark dilution.”
Ziff Davis is one of the largest digital publishers in the US, owning more than 45 media properties, including tech publications Mashable, PCMag, CNET, and ZDNET. This is one of the biggest lawsuits currently filed against OpenAI.
OpenAI ‘flouted copyright and trademark law’
Ziff Davis filed the complaint, which is 62 pages long, on April 24, 2025 in federal court in Delaware. The lawsuit accuses OpenAI of training its large language model (LLM) on Ziff Davis content without permission.
The lawsuit argues that “simultaneously with intentionally and egregiously exploiting the content of Ziff Davis and other commercial web publishers without permission, OpenAI is also actively creating and cultivating a market to license content from publishers. OpenAI, by its actions, has flouted copyright and trademark law and discredited its own pretext for that flouting.”
The New York Times has reported that Ziff Davis is seeking “at least hundreds of millions of dollars” in the lawsuit, according to two anonymous sources.
OpenAI has claimed that its actions fall under the fair use portion of copyright law and therefore do not violate it.
Ziff Davis complaint one of many lawsuits against OpenAI
Ziff Davis is far from the only company to sue OpenAI over its use of media content in training AI models. Some other media entities that have sued OpenAI include The New York Times and regional newspapers as well as famous authors, actors, and comedians. Some of the suits also include Microsoft, which is a major investor in OpenAI.
In early April, a US judicial panel moved to consolidate 12 of these copyright cases against the AI company. The suits include The New York Times case as well as individual plaintiffs such as comedian Sarah Silverman and authors Ta-Nehisi Coates, John Grisham, Jonathan Franzen, and George R.R. Martin.
Other media companies have taken a different approach, striking deals with OpenAI that allow its AI models to train on their content in exchange for money. These media companies include the Associated Press, The Atlantic, Axel Springer (publisher of Business Insider and Politico), News Corp (owner of The Wall Street Journal), and Vox Media.
One of the anonymous sources told The New York Times that Ziff Davis decided to sue OpenAI partly out of hope that it would inspire other media properties to file their own suits.