Publishers sue AI startup Cohere over alleged copyright infringement

A consortium of fourteen publishers including Condé Nast, The Atlantic, and Forbes have filed a lawsuit against Cohere alleging that the generative AI startup has engaged in “massive, systematic” copyright infringement.

In the complaint, the publisher plaintiffs accuse Cohere of using at least 4,000 copyrighted works to train its AI models and display large portions of articles — and even entire articles — for users, harming the publishers’ referral traffic. The suit also alleges that Cohere infringed on publishers’ trademarks by “hallucinating” content that wasn’t actually published by the outlets.

In a statement, Josh Gartner, head of communications at Cohere, said that Cohere “strongly stands by its practices for responsibly training its enterprise AI” and believes the lawsuit is “misguided and frivolous.”

“We have long prioritized controls that mitigate the risk of IP infringement and respect the rights of holders,” Gartner continued. “We would have welcomed a conversation about their specific concerns — and the opportunity to explain our enterprise-focused approach — rather than learning about them in a filing. We […] expect this matter to be resolved in our favor.”

The lawsuit against Cohere is the latest in a string of courtroom battles targeting AI companies for alleged IP violations. Some companies, including OpenAI, have embraced a strategy of licensing content in part to fend off future legal challenges, while at the same time arguing that their alleged use of copyrighted material is fair use.