OTTAWA, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Five major Canadian news

media companies on Friday filed a legal action against ChatGPT

owner OpenAI, accusing the artificial intelligence giant of

regularly breaching copyright and online terms of use.

The case is part of a wave of lawsuits against OpenAI and

other tech companies by authors, visual artists, music

publishers and other copyright owners over data used to train

generative AI systems. Microsoft ( MSFT ) is OpenAI's major

backer.

In a statement, Torstar, Postmedia, The Globe and Mail, The

Canadian Press, and CBC/Radio-Canada said OpenAI was scraping

large swaths of content from media to help develop its products

without getting permission or compensating content owners.

"Journalism is in the public interest. OpenAI using other

companies' journalism for their own commercial gain is not. It's

illegal," they said.

A New York federal judge on Nov. 7 dismissed a lawsuit

against OpenAI that claimed it misused articles from news

outlets Raw Story and AlterNet.

In an 84-page statement of claim filed in Ontario's

superior court of justice, the five Canadian companies demanded

damages from OpenAI and a permanent injunction preventing it

from using their material without consent.

"Rather than seek to obtain the information legally,

OpenAI has elected to brazenly misappropriate the News Media

Companies' valuable intellectual property and convert it for its

own uses, including commercial uses, without consent or

consideration," they said in the filing.

"The News Media Companies have never received from

OpenAI any form of consideration, including payment, in exchange

for OpenAI's use of their Works."

OpenAI was not immediately available for comment.

The document did not mention Microsoft ( MSFT ). Earlier this

month billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk expanded a lawsuit

against OpenAI to include Microsoft ( MSFT ), alleging the two companies

illegally sought to monopolize the market for generative

artificial intelligence and sideline competitors.