A look inside the news industry’s awkward negotiations with OpenAI
For months, some of the biggest players in the U.S. media industry have been in confidential talks with OpenAI over a sticky issue: the price and terms of licensing their content to the artificial intelligence company.
The curtain was raised on these negotiations this week when The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, alleging that the companies had used its content without permission to build artificial intelligence products.
The Times said it had been talking to the companies about a deal for months before the indictment. And it wasn’t the only one. Other news organizations – including Gannett, the largest U.S. newspaper company; News Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal; and IAC, the digital behemoth behind The Daily Beast and magazine publisher Dotdash Meredith — have been in talks with OpenAI, said three people familiar with the negotiations who requested anonymity to discuss the confidential conversations.
The News/Media Alliance, which represents more than 2,200 news organizations in North America, has also been talking to OpenAI about coming up with a framework for a deal that would suit its members, a person familiar with the talks said.
Microsoft, OpenAI’s largest investor and which integrates OpenAI technology into its products, has also held talks. “We’ve had thoughtful conversations with a number of publishers and look forward to future discussions,” said Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw.
Companies like OpenAI and Microsoft have entered into licensing agreements with news organizations to train AI systems that can produce human-like prose. These systems in turn power applications such as chatbots, from which the companies can generate revenue.
Nearly a dozen publishers and media business experts say the talks have been complicated by the rapid development of artificial intelligence applications in the market, which has raised thorny issues for the future of the media industry.
In a statement, OpenAI said it respected the rights of content creators and owners and believed they should benefit from AI technology, citing its agreements with The Associated Press and German publishing conglomerate Axel Springer.
“We continue to have productive conversations with many of them around the world to discuss their questions about AI,” Kayla Wood, a spokeswoman for OpenAI, said in a statement. “We are optimistic that we will continue to find mutually beneficial ways to work together to support a rich news ecosystem.”
News publishers have had precarious relationships with tech companies since losing much of their traditional advertising business to upstarts like Google and Facebook more than a decade ago, and publishing executives are wary of selling their content too cheaply.
“I think part of the reason why news organizations are looking so carefully at OpenAI now is that they have 20 years of history indicating that if we’re not careful, we’ll be giving away the keys to the kingdom,” said Andrew Morse, the publisher of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the flagship newspaper of Cox Media Group, which is not in talks with OpenAI.
There are also fears that artificial intelligence applications could produce inaccurate information citing their articles, damaging the companies’ credibility.
“We went through a decade of misinformation and disinformation, and that was pre-AI,” said Ken Doctor, a media analyst and entrepreneur. “Now that AI is on the scene, we are only at the beginning of the era where everyone has the ability to amplify and multiply disinformation and disinformation. And that of course scares news publishers.”
Still, some news organizations have made deals. The agreement with Associated Press, announced in July, allows OpenAI to license The AP’s archive of news articles. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Axel Springer, who owns Politico and Business Insider, among others, went even further: it struck this month a multi-year agreement That gave OpenAI access to its news archive and allowed the artificial intelligence company to use newly published articles in apps like ChatGPT. The deal, which includes a “performance fee” based on how much OpenAI uses the content, is worth more than $10 million a year, a person familiar with the agreement said.
Some media companies have decided not to enter into commercial deals with OpenAI. Bloomberg, which has a major data terminal business that uses artificial intelligence, has decided to advance its own AI efforts, according to a person familiar with the company’s strategy. The Washington Post also has not negotiated with OpenAI in recent months, according to a person familiar with the company’s efforts.
Despite the tension between the news industry and OpenAI, some publishers have made measured comments about the potential benefits of AI Jim Friedlich, the CEO of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, the nonprofit owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer, said news organizations and artificial intelligence companies were ‘increasingly interdependent’ as users wanted AI technology with reliable information.
“It is important for all parties to reach a settlement, and if possible, quickly,” he said. “Whether that will take months or years is anyone’s guess.”