Britannica, Merriam-Webster Sue OpenAI on Copyright Claims

Encyclopedia Britannica and its subsidiary Merriam-Webster filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in federal court in Manhattan on March 13, 2026, accusing the artificial intelligence company of copyright and trademark infringement by using their reference materials to train the ChatGPT chatbot without permission.

The complaint alleges that OpenAI copied nearly 100,000 Britannica articles, along with dictionary entries from Merriam-Webster, to develop its large language models. According to the filing, this unauthorized use has enabled ChatGPT to generate responses that include verbatim or near-verbatim reproductions, summaries, or abridgments of the plaintiffs' copyrighted works. Britannica and Merriam-Webster claim these outputs divert users away from their websites, reducing traffic and revenue from subscriptions and advertising. The publishers, which shifted to a fully digital model after discontinuing their print encyclopedia in 2012, argue that OpenAI is profiting from their centuries-old editorial content without compensation.

In addition to copyright violations under the 1976 Copyright Act, the lawsuit raises trademark concerns under the Lanham Act. It contends that ChatGPT...