Aug 25, 2026｜Sources: Reuters, Bloomberg, Court Filings, Case No. 1:26‑cv‑07171
Popular how‑to‑content platform WikiHow filed a formal lawsuit on August 21 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against OpenAI and its affiliated entities, alleging that ChatGPT and other large‑language models were trained on WikiHow’s original copyrighted material without permission, and requesting a jury trial.
WikiHow hosts hundreds of thousands of original step‑by‑step guides, articles and illustrations protected under U.S. copyright law. According to the complaint, OpenAI systematically scraped large volumes of WikiHow content to train its GPT‑series models, without securing licenses or compensation. ChatGPT‑generated answers frequently reproduce text, structure and instructions substantially similar to WikiHow’s publications, diverting web traffic and undermining WikiHow’s advertising‑based revenue.
WikiHow argues that OpenAI’s monetised, paid‑for ChatGPT service profits commercially from intellectual property created by third‑party authors, with no revenue‑sharing arrangements, thereby harming the wider creator ecosystem. The lawsuit seeks damages and a permanent injunction barring OpenAI from using WikiHow material for future AI training.
This case joins a growing wave of high‑profile copyright litigation against generative‑AI firms in the United States. OpenAI already faces multiple suits brought by authors, news organisations and encyclopaedia publishers, with the central legal question whether web‑scraping for AI training qualifies as “fair use” under U.S. copyright law. The outcome is expected to set a landmark precedent governing data‑licensing practices across the global AI industry.
OpenAI has not yet issued an official statement responding to the WikiHow lawsuit.