USA Today Co. is seeking $250 million from OpenAI over the alleged unauthorized use of articles from 19 publications. The publisher filed suit Oct. 9, 2026, according to Press Gazette’s tracker of publisher lawsuits and licensing deals.
The complaint names USA Today, The Tennessean, Indy Star, Detroit Free Press and The Des Moines Register. USA Today Co. alleges OpenAI used hundreds of thousands of articles without permission or payment.
The suit says OpenAI’s WebText dataset included more than 160,000 entries from USA Today Co. publications. Of those, 83,266 came from USA Today, the company alleges. A 2019 Common Crawl snapshot contained more than 122 million tokens from its publications, according to the complaint.
The publisher also alleges GPT models “memorized” copies of its work. It says the models can return “near-verbatim copies and summaries” when prompted. USA Today Co. says the alleged use caused “real and continuing damage” to its news brands.
“OpenAI never asked permission. It never offered payment,” the complaint says. Press Gazette’s tracker did not include an OpenAI response to the lawsuit.
The case joins a growing list of disputes between publishers and artificial intelligence companies. The Seattle Times and Newsday sued OpenAI and Microsoft on Sept. 7. Both had received 2024 funding through the Lenfest Institute for AI fellowships.
WikiHow sued OpenAI on Aug. 22. Argentina’s Editorial Perfil sued OpenAI and Microsoft four days later. Press Gazette described Perfil as the first Spanish-language publisher believed to have sued either company.
More than 30 U.S. local publishers also sued OpenAI and Microsoft in June. Together, those publishers own almost 400 titles.
Other AI companies face similar disputes. A federal judge on July 31 largely rejected Perplexity’s attempt to dismiss Reddit’s scraping lawsuit. News Corp is also suing Brave over alleged scraping. CEO Robert Thomson has condemned Brave’s conduct and called for it to stop.
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At the same time, publishers continue signing licensing agreements with technology companies. OpenAI has reached deals with two major Indian newspaper groups. E4m reported annual values near $5 million and $3 million, respectively.
Microsoft has signed a news deal with Australia’s Nine Entertainment. News Corp also reached a Meta agreement reportedly worth up to $50 million annually. Folha, meanwhile, settled its OpenAI lawsuit by reaching an agreement with the company.
Press Gazette’s tracker lists USA Today among Meta’s publisher partners. It also lists USA Today Network among Microsoft’s partners.
OpenAI was reported in 2024 to be offering some publishers between $1 million and $5 million annually. News Corp’s OpenAI agreement was reportedly worth more than $250 million over five years.
Those figures show that reported licensing values vary widely. They do not establish why individual publishers choose litigation, licensing or both.
USA Today Co.’s complaint also cites specific dataset counts to support its allegations. The source does not show that publishers generally collect similar evidence before suing.
Media Copilot has separately examined publishers’ role in negotiating AI licensing prices. That broader question remains separate from USA Today Co.’s complaint.
More cases may follow. Perfil digital director Agustino Fontevecchia said his company’s lawsuit was planned as “the first of several.”
