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Encyclopaedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster File Copyright Lawsuit Against OpenAI

SPACE 4K
March 17, 2026

Chaitra 3, Kathmandu – The globally renowned encyclopedia Encyclopaedia Britannica and the dictionary Merriam-Webster have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the artificial intelligence company OpenAI.

Britannica alleges that OpenAI used approximately 100,000 of its online articles without permission to train its AI models.

The lawsuit claims that OpenAI utilizes Britannica’s content verbatim in the responses generated by ChatGPT, which has directly impacted the revenue of the publishers.

Additionally, Britannica accuses OpenAI of damaging its brand through ‘hallucination’—the generation of false information. Britannica argues that scanning their articles using Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technology infringes the rights of authors and publishers.

Previously, major media outlets such as The New York Times and the Toronto Star have also filed similar lawsuits against OpenAI.

This case is expected to set an important legal precedent regarding whether AI companies are required to pay for the use of online content going forward.

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