# Judge Asks USA Today Publishers to Oppose Pause in OpenAI Case By Riza Dagoc Canonical URL: https://www.tokenpost.com/news/regulation/41869 Published: 2026-10-27T16:53:29.000Z Updated: 2026-10-27T16:53:29.000Z Section: Regulation > The publishers have until Oct. 30 to explain why the case should not be stayed while summary-judgment motions in related cases are resolved. A federal judge has asked 14 publishers to explain why their copyright case against OpenAI should not be stayed pending resolution of summary-judgment motions in related cases. U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein’s Oct. 15 order gives the publishers until Friday, Oct. 30, to respond. The order does not pause the suit or decide whether OpenAI infringed the publishers’ copyrights. USA Today Co. and 13 affiliated companies [filed the suit Oct. 8]() over content in 19 publications, including USA TODAY, The Tennessean and the Detroit Free Press. The publishers allege OpenAI copied their journalism to train AI models, generated responses that reproduced or repackaged their work, and removed copyright-management information. The court has not ruled on those allegations. The complaint also alleges that the publishers’ content accounts for more than 160,000 entries in OpenAI’s WebText dataset, including 83,266 entries from usatoday.com and 12,994 from freep.com. Those figures count dataset entries alleged by the publishers, not distinct articles established by a court. The publishers seek damages above $250 million and want the court to require destruction of models and training sets that use their material. Those are requested remedies, not an award or an order from the court. The case is part of a broader dispute over whether using copyrighted material to train AI models qualifies as fair use and whether outputs that reproduce protected material infringe publishers’ rights. Stein’s order refers to pending motions in other active cases in the same multidistrict litigation, including The New York Times’ December 2023 case against OpenAI and Microsoft. OpenAI has said, “We believe generative AI training and use qualify as fair use.” Any response from the defendants is due Nov. 6. ## Links in this article - [filed the suit Oct. 8](https://www.tokenpost.com/news/regulation/28641)