Mumsnet has launched a legal complaint against OpenAI, alleging the AI company scraped billions of words and content from the site without permission.

Although content creators and publishers have expressed concern about the protection and copyright of their online content in recent months, this marks the first such legal action against OpenAI in the UK.

The complaint, which includes claims of copyright infringement, breach of terms of use, and database right infringement, demands that OpenAI delete all Mumsnet data it holds and cease further usage.

Mumsnet unhappy with OpenAI scraping

The online platform consists of over six billion words shared by community members, which are protected under the site’s terms of use, which explicitly prohibit unauthorized scraping.

Earlier this year, Mumsnet had approached OpenAI to discuss a potential licensing agreement, highlighting the value of their content in addressing any gender biases displayed in AI models. The discussions were reportedly unsuccessful, after OpenAI expressed a preference for datasets that are not easily accessible online.

Mumsnet Founder and CEO Justine Roberts expressed the site’s determination to protect its content, as well as its commitment to address the broader implications for online publishers: “We know that taking on a multinational giant like OpenAI is not an easy task in the face of the huge resources they’ll throw at us but this is too important an issue to simply roll over.”

Roberts emphasized the potential harm to publishers if AI developers continue to scrape content without permission: “But if the LLMs are allowed to simply steal content from publishers and communities like Mumsnet they risk destroying them. Everything that’s unique and brilliant about sites like ours will be lost, and a handful of Silicon Valley giants will be left with even more control over the world’s content and commerce.”

TechRadar Pro has asked OpenAI to comment on the case, but the company did not immediately respond. 

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