The Ontario Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed OpenAI’s appeal, clearing the way for a copyright lawsuit by a coalition of Canadian news publishers to proceed in Ontario.

The publishers—including The Canadian Press, Torstar, The Globe and Mail, Postmedia and CBC/Radio-Canada—allege OpenAI used their news content to train ChatGPT and other commercial AI applications without permission or compensation, and profited from that work.

OpenAI argued the dispute belonged in the United States and that the alleged infringements fell beyond Canadian law’s territorial reach, but the court found Ontario had a “real and substantial connection” to the claims and said OpenAI offered no evidence a Canadian judgment would conflict with U.S. laws or complicate enforcement.

The court said the fair and efficient operation of Canada’s legal system favoured letting Canadian authors bring claims under Canadian law against foreign companies.

The ruling upholds an earlier decision by Justice Jessica Kimmel of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

The lawsuit alleges breaches of the Copyright Act and website Terms of Use, as well as unjust enrichment.

The Court of Appeal ordered OpenAI to pay the media organizations $100,000 in legal costs.

Launched in 2024, the lawsuit is described as Canada’s first case to address the use of copyrighted material to train generative AI systems.

News and cultural industry groups have urged the federal government to clarify how AI systems may use copyrighted material, but Ottawa has announced no plans to act or amend the Copyright Act.

Earlier in 2026, Postmedia, Torstar, The Globe and Mail and The Canadian Press filed a separate copyright lawsuit against Anthropic.

Other AI copyright cases are underway in the United States, including publishers’ allegations that Canadian AI company Cohere scraped their articles without permission or compensation.