Eight US regional newspapers have sued the chatbot developer OpenAI and its business partner Microsoft. They claim their articles were used without permission, violating copyright laws.

The newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and the Denver Post, filed the lawsuit in a court in New York on Tuesday.

They claim that OpenAI and Microsoft stole millions of copyrighted articles without permission or payment to train their generative artificial intelligence chatbots.

They also say the chatbots are undermining the newspapers' credibility by falsely attributing inaccurate reporting to them.

The newspapers claim, "Local news is the bedrock of democracy and its continued existence is put at risk" by the chatbot developers' actions.

OpenAI responded in a statement, "We take great care in our products and design process to support news organizations."

Media outlets are divided over the use of their articles by generative AI.

The New York Times filed a similar lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft in December, but the Associated Press and the London-based Financial Times have announced partnerships with OpenAI.