A copyright lawsuit filed against OpenAI by major Canadian news outlets can be heard in Ontario after a court rejected the artificial intelligence company’s argument that the province has no jurisdiction over it.
OpenAI, headquartered in San Francisco, attempted to have the lawsuit tossed by arguing that none of the corporate entities named as defendants in the case conduct business in Ontario, and that the United States would be a more appropriate venue. The lawsuit was filed with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
Judge Jessica Kimmel said in a ruling issued Friday that the court has jurisdiction over six of the OpenAI entities named in the lawsuit. The other four were not proven to be involved in business operations related to the claims in the lawsuit. She also wrote the U.S. would not be a more convenient place for the matter.
Two years after the launch of ChatGPT, how has generative AI helped businesses?
Media organizations including The Globe and Mail and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation sued OpenAI in November, 2024, for allegedly violating copyright law by scraping proprietary news content without consent or payment to train its models, such as those that power ChatGPT. In addition, the lawsuit makes claims of breach of contract and unjust enrichment against OpenAI.
The plaintiffs also include Postmedia Network Inc., Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd., Metroland Media Group, The Canadian Press and Radio-Canada.
Lawyers for OpenAI argued in a September court hearing that none of the corporate entities named in the lawsuit can be said to have any business in Ontario, or any offices. Lawyers also said that OpenAI’s model training and web-crawling activities, which are at the heart of the lawsuit, occur outside of Ontario.
Justice Kimmel wrote that some of the corporate entities have customers, contracts, advertisements and trademarks in Canada, which is enough to establish a “connection of them carrying on business” in the province. She also wrote that the alleged wrongdoings by OpenAI are sufficiently connected to Ontario.
A spokesperson for OpenAI did not comment directly on the court decision, but said in an e-mailed statement that its models are built with publicly available data and that the company follows the principles of fair use under copyright laws.
Opinion: Don’t hate ChatGPT-5. Your chatbot is not your friend
Even as the company was making arguments in court distancing itself from Ontario, it is looking to expand its presence in Canada. Chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane told The Globe in October that OpenAI is interested in “being a true, real partner here on the ground in Canada.”
The lawsuit is one of many filed against AI companies by authors, artists and publishers who say that building models with their intellectual property without consent or payment violates copyright law.
AI companies argue that such practices are allowed under copyright laws through a provision known as fair dealing or fair use, which permits using copyrighted material for research and educational purposes.
But how that applies to commercial AI models has proven controversial. The Copyright Act in Canada was conceived well before generative AI took off. The federal government completed a consultation last year about updating the legislation, but has taken no steps since to amend it.