Publications sue AI companies over copyright

New York Times, news publishers target AI companies for copyright claims

What you probably already know: Media companies are increasingly going after artificial intelligence businesses that have trained their large language models on the publications’ content. These publications want to be paid for the use of their work, which is reportedly being used to generate summaries and answers to users’ questions. The New York Times this week sent a cease and desist letter to Perplexity, an AI startup that’s backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The Times, as well as Forbes and Condé Nast, allege Perplexity is using their material without permission.

Why? Many news publishers are reliant on search results to drive clicks to their websites. Those clicks then pay the bills as advertisers pay for access to that audience. But AI-generated summaries are preventing people from actually clicking through, thus depriving these publications of revenue, while the AI models are able to learn and present the publications’ copyrighted information to their audiences instead. The Times has attempted to block AI companies like Perplexity and ChatGPT from crawling its site and using its content, and sued OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT last year. The suit is still in progress.

What it means: Some publishers are working out deals, though, with AI companies. NewsCorp, which owns the Wall Street Journal. The Associated Press, Politico owner Axel Springer, and Dotdash Meredith, which owns People magazine and Better Homes & Gardens, as well as Investopedia and Allrecipes, have all done deals with AI companies. Academic publishers have also signed multi-million-dollar deals to license access to research and textbooks, something that has outraged academics who feel like their work is being exploited.

What happens now? This is uncharted territory for many publishers, but it’s also an opportunity for new lines of revenue for publications that have struggled for years with declining advertising revenue. Tech companies have traditionally not worked well with publishers. Meta made many promises about sending revenue publishers’ way only to change its algorithm and policies, and scoop up all the ad revenue itself. Google’s ad words have decimated local news publishers, and thousands of publications have folded as big tech continues to use the work of journalist to drive revenue without having to employ journalists themselves. Now there’s a chance for these companies to make that right.