Lenczner Slaght Represents VerticalScope in Legal Action Against OpenAI

Lenczner Slaght is counsel to VerticalScope in a legal action filed yesterday on the Commercial List against OpenAI for misappropriating content from VerticalScope’s websites without permission or compensation.

VerticalScope — comprising more than 1,200 websites, over 2.3 billion posts of content, and 90 million monthly active users — operates some of Canada's most recognized online communities and forums, including RedFlagDeals.com (Canada’s largest deal-hunting and bargain forum). This rich repository of authentic, human-generated passion content is the core of VerticalScope’s business and is protected at law by contract and by copyright.

To develop its artificial intelligence products, including ChatGPT, OpenAI has deliberately scraped and used VerticalScope's valuable and proprietary content without consent or authorization. OpenAI has profited while diverting traffic away from VerticalScope's websites.

The claim seeks damages for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and copyright infringement, and a permanent injunction to stop OpenAI from continuing to use VerticalScope's content unlawfully.

This is only the second action of its kind in Canada against OpenAI, following the claim Lenczner Slaght brought on behalf of Canada's leading news media companies (Torstar, Postmedia, The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press, and CBC/Radio-Canada) in November 2024. It reflects a growing global trend, similar to actions Reddit brought against Anthropic and Perplexity in the United States for scraping user-generated community content.

VerticalScope spent decades building vibrant online communities where millions share real knowledge and expertise. That investment deserves protection and this claim aims to ensure it gets it.

Sana Halwani and Jim Lepore are leading the litigation on behalf of VerticalScope.