The Brazilian online news website Folha de São Paulo has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, the company behind the popular artificial intelligence platform ChatGPT, for allegedly using its content without permission or payment. The legal action, which was initiated on Wednesday, August 21, 2025, demands that OpenAI cease collecting and utilizing the newspaper’s content for training its AI models and requests compensation for the unauthorized use of journalistic material.
According to the lawsuit filed in the São Paulo court, OpenAI has been engaging in unfair competition and copyright violation by accessing and employing Folha’s published articles to enhance its AI technology. This includes providing users with complete reproductions and summaries of articles, some of which are behind a paywall intended exclusively for subscribers.
Legal Precedents and Similar Cases
“Folha de São Paulo has discovered that OpenAI’s AI tool, ChatGPT, accesses its website daily, bypassing protective measures put in place to prevent such activities. This unauthorized distribution of our content to internet users constitutes a clear act of unfair competition, as it diverts our audience illegitimately,”
– Taís Gasparian, the legal representative for Folha
The lawsuit is reminiscent of a similar action taken by The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft in the United States in December 2023. The NYT claimed that OpenAI was illegally copying and using its valuable content, which could potentially warrant billions of dollars in damages.
Folha’s lawsuit also calls for the destruction of AI models that have been trained using their protected content. Documentation attached to the lawsuit reveals that OpenAI has used Folha’s articles for training its language models. In a GitHub repository maintained by OpenAI employees, the UOL domain, which hosts Folha, is listed among the primary sources for ChatGPT’s training data. In July alone, over 45,000 accesses to Folha’s site were recorded by GPT bots, specifically for training purposes.
Legal Precedents and Similar Cases
The newspaper seeks an injunction to halt the immediate use of its content by OpenAI, with the compensation amount to be determined at a later stage of the proceedings.
“The press needs to be compensated for its work. OpenAI benefits from all the investments Folha makes in producing current and reliable news without any compensation, which is unsustainable,”
– Gasparian
Monica Galvão, another lawyer representing Folha, emphasized the importance of supporting national media in the face of tech giants’ growing dominance. “The Brazilian media should be valued in this context of market concentration. It is essential to understand that AI models operate on content produced and funded by the press, which deserves to be paid for it.”
Prior to taking legal action, Folha attempted to negotiate an agreement with OpenAI last year. However, the talks stalled due to a lack of cooperation from OpenAI. The final email from Folha remained unanswered, highlighting OpenAI’s dismissive attitude towards the issue.
Broader Implications and Legislative Context
The lawsuit comes amid the discussion of a bill (PL 2338) that was approved by the Brazilian Senate in December 2024 and is now under consideration in the Chamber of Deputies. The bill proposes the payment of copyright fees for content used in training AI models.
In a recent interview, Nicolas Robinson Andrade, the director of OpenAI for Latin America, expressed opposition to the bill’s provision for copyright payments, drawing a controversial analogy to taxing chair manufacturing. “It’s as if Brazil would become the only country in the world to tax the making of chairs. Naturally, chair factories would avoid being built here in the future,” he said.
This case reflects the broader global debate on the ethical and legal implications of AI in utilizing copyrighted material for training purposes, without proper authorization or remuneration. The outcome of this lawsuit could have significant implications for how AI companies approach content licensing in Brazil and potentially set a precedent for other media outlets worldwide.
Source: Folha
