Reported 13 Nov 2026 · Governance A one-minute read

Canada's biggest newsrooms can sue OpenAI at home: its appeal was dismissed with costs.

On November 13 the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld Ontario's jurisdiction over OpenAI and ordered it to pay $100,000 in costs. OpenAI had argued the case belonged in a US court.

Until now

Where a lab trains decided which court could hear a training claim.

Now

Where the work was taken from can be connection enough.

Why it matters

The suit was filed in November 2024 and claims statutory damages of up to C$20,000 for each infringed work. Two years of OpenAI's defence has been about venue, not training. In Canada that argument is now spent, and the copyright question itself finally starts.

Established

A unanimous 3 judge panel dismissed OpenAI's appeal on November 13.
The court found Ontario has a real and substantial connection to the alleged breaches.
OpenAI was ordered to pay $100,000 in costs to the publishers.

Not established

Anything about copyright itself. Only jurisdiction was decided.
That OpenAI cannot seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
The damages at stake, which no court has assessed.

The five-minute readThe record, the timeline, the weight and 4 sources

The record

Reported, not verified. The decision text is not readable to us: CanLII and the Ontario Courts site both refused our requests, so we hold no neutral citation and have not read the reasons. The panel, the costs figure and the quoted finding come from Broadcast Dialogue at 18:50 Universal Time and The Canadian Press at 21:24. Verification event: the neutral citation appearing on CanLII or ontariocourts.ca, by December 13, 2026.

The Ontario Court of Appeal released its decision on Friday November 13, 2026, dismissing OpenAI's appeal. Broadcast Dialogue, published at 18:50 Universal Time, reports a unanimous three judge panel with Justice B.W. Miller writing, and quotes the court holding that "Ontario has a real and substantial connection to the alleged breaches." It reports the court upholding the earlier decision of Justice Jessica Kimmel of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, and ordering OpenAI, which it describes as Delaware based, to pay $100,000 in legal costs to the respondent media organisations. The appeal challenged service of the claim outside Ontario; OpenAI argued the alleged infringements fell outside the territorial reach of Canadian law and that the dispute belonged in the United States. The Canadian Press carried the ruling at 21:24 Universal Time, describing the case as the first in Canada to address the use of copyrighted content to train generative AI systems, and naming the plaintiffs as The Canadian Press, Torstar, The Globe and Mail, Postmedia and CBC/Radio-Canada. The action was filed on November 29, 2024. The jurisdictional challenge was argued in September 2025 and dismissed by the Superior Court on November 27, 2025. The claims are copyright infringement, breach of the terms of use on the publishers' websites, and unjust enrichment. The relief sought is statutory damages of up to C$20,000 for each infringed work, disgorgement of profits, and an injunction. OpenAI's position is that it has no offices, servers or employees in Ontario and that the scraping and training happened elsewhere. Not established: the neutral citation, the other two judges, the reasons beyond the quoted finding, any merits ruling, the number of works in issue, and whether OpenAI will seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. No statement from OpenAI has been published.

How it got here

Nov 29 2024
Five Canadian news organisations file in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, claiming copyright infringement, breach of website terms and unjust enrichment over the training of ChatGPT.
Nov 27 2025
The Superior Court dismisses OpenAI's jurisdictional challenge. OpenAI appeals, keeping the case off its merits for another year.
Sep 1
OpenAI, Microsoft and the news publishers all ask one US judge to end the biggest American AI copyright case without a trial. Editions 009 and 013.
Nov 3
The Court of Justice of the European Union is advised that AI training is mostly lawful but that answers can infringe, and a Sao Paulo judge bars Meta from training on Brazilian news. Editions 072 and 073.
Nov 13
The Ontario Court of Appeal dismisses the appeal, finds a real and substantial connection to Ontario, and awards $100,000 of costs against OpenAI.

Who has to react

OpenAI, which must now defend training in a second country or seek leave from the Supreme Court of Canada; The Canadian Press, Torstar, The Globe and Mail, Postmedia and CBC/Radio-Canada; every Canadian rights holder watching the venue question close; the Canadian government, which said it is watching the courts, not legislating; Anthropic, Google and Meta.

What to watch

Would strengthen itOpenAI, Anthropic, Google or Meta loses a jurisdiction or forum challenge in a further country's AI training case, by June 30, 2027.
Would weaken itThe Supreme Court of Canada grants OpenAI leave to appeal, or a comparable court stays or dismisses a training claim on forum grounds, by June 30, 2027.
Would strengthen itThe Ontario action reaches a scheduled merits hearing or a documentary discovery order, rather than settling or stalling, by December 31, 2027.

Why it weighs this much

Signal strength

CostMedium

CommitmentHigh

ReversibilityLow

PersistenceStructural

Cost is medium: a unanimous appellate panel spent a year on the point and attached $100,000 of costs, which is a court pricing the argument rather than merely rejecting it. Commitment is high, because an appeal court's jurisdictional holding binds the courts below it. Reversibility is low: only the Supreme Court of Canada can undo it, and leave is discretionary and rare. Persistence is structural, because a jurisdiction test, once settled at this level, governs every training claim brought in the province after it.

The words

Real and substantial connection: Canada's test for whether a court may hear a case against a foreign defendant. Meeting it gets the claim heard; it says nothing about who wins.
Statutory damages: A sum fixed by statute per infringed work, claimed instead of proving loss. With a large body of works, the arithmetic does the damage.
Costs award: Money the losing side pays toward the winner's legal bills. Canadian courts use it to price the choice to litigate a point.

Sources

Your call

If confirmed: which explanation do you believe?

A call is final. Other people's calls show after yours.