Source: BNN Bloomberg

The Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed OpenAI’s jurisdictional appeal, allowing Canadian news publishers’ copyright lawsuit over AI training to proceed in Ontario. The publishers include The Canadian Press, Torstar, The Globe and Mail, Postmedia and CBC/Radio-Canada. The publishers allege that OpenAI uses their reporting to train ChatGPT and profits from that use without permission or compensation, infringing their copyright. OpenAI challenged Ontario’s jurisdiction and argued that the dispute should be heard in a United States court. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice had concluded that the court had jurisdiction, and OpenAI’s appeal against that decision was dismissed.

The appeal decision stated that OpenAI had submitted no evidence showing that a Canadian judgment would conflict with existing United States laws in a way that would complicate enforcement. The decision also cited the lower-court judge’s view that the fair and efficient operation of Canada’s legal system favoured allowing Canadian authors to pursue foreign companies for alleged breaches of Canadian laws. The reported ruling concerns jurisdiction; it does not establish that OpenAI infringed the publishers’ copyright. The proceedings began in 2024 and are described as the first Canadian case addressing the use of copyrighted material to train generative AI systems. News and cultural industry groups have urged federal action on AI’s use of copyrighted content, but the report says Ottawa has not indicated any plans to act or amend the Copyright Act.