Media companies sue Toronto AI firm Cohere over alleged copyright infringement
Written by The Canadian Press on February 13, 2025
TORONTO — A group of major U.S. media companies and the Toronto Star are suing artificial intelligence firm Cohere over copyright infringement.
The group pursuing the lawsuit against Toronto-based Cohere includes publishers Condé Nast, McClatchy, Forbes Media, Guardian News and companies behind the Los Angeles Times, Vox, Politico and the Atlantic.
In a complaint filed with a New York court, they say Cohere has infringed on copyright by scraping copies of their articles from the internet without the publishers’ permission or compensation.
They allege Cohere has then used the articles to train the large language models powering its AI services.
The media companies are asking the court for an order stopping Cohere from using their copyrighted works for training or fine-tuning AI models, along with up to $150,000 for every article they allege Cohere infringed.
Cohere spokesperson Josh Gartner called the lawsuit misguided and frivolous, adding the company would have much rather dealt with concerns through conversation rather than a court filing.
He says in an email that he expects the matter to be resolved in Cohere’s favour because it has long worked to mitigate the risk of intellectual property infringement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 13, 2025.
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Torstar Corp. and a related company of the Globe and Mail hold investments in The Canadian Press.
Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press