News publishers’ copyright lawsuit against OpenAI to go ahead in Ontario

The Chat GPT app icon appears on a smartphone screen on Monday, Aug. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)

OTTAWA — An Ontario court has decided a copyright lawsuit filed by Canadian news publishers against OpenAI will proceed in that province.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, had put forward a jurisdictional challenge and argued the case should be heard in a U.S. courtroom instead.

OpenAI said the company isn’t located in Ontario and doesn’t do business in the province, and that the alleged conduct — the AI model training and crawling of web content — took place outside of Ontario.

But the decision by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice concludes the court does have jurisdiction to hear the case.

A coalition of Canadian news outlets, which includes The Canadian Press, Torstar, The Globe and Mail, Postmedia and CBC/Radio-Canada, launched the lawsuit a year ago.

They argue that OpenAI is using their news content to train ChatGPT, breaching copyright and profiting from the use of that content without permission or compensation.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 27, 2025.

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press