Encyclopedia Britannica and its Merriam‑Webster subsidiary sued OpenAI in Manhattan federal court, alleging the company used their online reference content to train ChatGPT and siphoned web traffic with AI summaries.
The complaint says OpenAI copied nearly 100,000 articles and that ChatGPT can produce near‑verbatim encyclopedia entries and dictionary definitions that divert users.
Britannica also accuses OpenAI of trademark infringement for implying it had permission to reproduce material and for wrongfully citing Britannica in false AI “hallucinations.”
Britannica seeks unspecified monetary damages and a court order to stop the alleged copying.
An OpenAI spokesperson said the company’s models are trained on publicly available data and are grounded in fair use.
The case joins other high‑stakes copyright suits from authors and news outlets and follows Britannica’s ongoing lawsuit against Perplexity AI.
🔗 Source: Reuters
Originally written by: Minh Le
Source: Tech in Asia
Published on: 17 March 2026
Link to original article: Encyclopedia Britannica sues OpenAI over AI training data
