Toronto Star Newspapers Limited v. OpenAI Inc.
Seven major Canadian news organizations sued OpenAI alleging copyright infringement, circumvention of technological protection measures, breach of website terms of service, and unjust enrichment, arising from OpenAI's use of their content to train ChatGPT. Damages sought include statutory damages of CA$20,000 per work and punitive damages.
| Court | Ontario Superior Court of Justice |
|---|---|
| Citation | 2025 ONSC 6217 |
| Case number | CV-24-00732231-00CL |
| Jurisdiction | Ontario |
| Filed | |
| Decided | |
| Parties | Plaintiff / Applicant: Toronto Star, Postmedia, Globe and Mail, CBC/Radio-Canada, The Canadian Press, and others Defendant / Respondent: OpenAI, Inc. and affiliated entities |
| Judge | Justice Barbara Conway (jurisdiction motion) |
AI context
AI system: ChatGPT / GPT family LLMs (OpenAI)
OpenAI allegedly scraped plaintiffs' published news content without consent to train its language models, and continued to access their websites via retrieval-augmented generation.
Significance
Largest Canadian AI copyright action by news organizations. Jurisdiction ruling (2025 ONSC 6217) confirmed that Ontario courts have both subject-matter and personal jurisdiction over foreign AI companies for training data disputes.
Outcome
OtherJurisdiction ruling (2025 ONSC 6217): Ontario court confirmed subject-matter and personal jurisdiction over six OpenAI defendants. Case proceeds to merits.