April 30 (Reuters) - A group of newspapers, including

the New York Daily News and Chicago Tribune, sued Microsoft ( MSFT )

and OpenAI in New York federal court on Tuesday,

accusing them of misusing reporters' work to train their

generative artificial-intelligence systems.

The eight newspapers, owned by hedge fund Alden Global

Capital's MediaNews Group, said in the lawsuit that the

companies unlawfully copied millions of their articles to train

AI products, including Microsoft's ( MSFT ) Copilot and OpenAI's ChatGPT.

The complaint follows similar ongoing lawsuits against

Microsoft ( MSFT ) and OpenAI, which has received billions in financial

backing from Microsoft ( MSFT ), brought by the New York Times and news

outlets The Intercept, Raw Story and AlterNet.

An OpenAI spokesperson said on Tuesday that the company

takes "great care in our products and design process to support

news organizations." A spokesperson for Microsoft ( MSFT ) declined to

comment on the complaint.

The newspaper cases are among several potential landmark

lawsuits brought by copyright owners against tech companies over

the data used to train their generative AI systems.

A lawyer for the MediaNews publications, Steven Lieberman,

told Reuters that OpenAI owed its runaway success to the works

of others. The defendants know they have to pay for computers,

chips, and employee salaries, but "think somehow they can get

away with taking content" without permission or payment, he

said.

The lawsuit said Microsoft ( MSFT ) and OpenAI's systems reproduce

the newspapers' copyrighted content "verbatim" when prompted. It

said ChatGPT also "hallucinates" articles attributed to the

newspapers that harm their reputations, including a fake Denver

Post article touting smoking as an asthma cure and a bogus

Chicago Tribune recommendation for an infant lounger that was

recalled after being linked to child deaths.

The plaintiffs also include the Orlando Sentinel, South

Florida Sun-Sentinel, San Jose Mercury News, Orange County

Register and Twin Cities Pioneer Press. They asked the court for

unspecified monetary damages and an order blocking any further

infringement.