AI: publishers fight back

Publishers are pushing back against AI platforms using their content, lobbying governments to ensure their intellectual property is protected while also taking action of their own to thwart the scanning of content for AI training purposes.

What’s happening?

• A number of major news and media brands have added code to their sites to block OpenAI’s web crawler, GPTBot, from scanning their platforms for content, CNN reports.
• IAC and The New York Times are said to be considering legal action against OpenAI; Associated Press has taken an alternative path, agreeing to a licensing deal. 
• In the UK, the Publishers Association has written to government ministers, the Financial Times reports, requesting that “UK intellectual property law ... be respected when any content is ingested by AI systems and a licence obtained in advance”.

Why AI legal action matters

• UK publishers fear that government ministers swayed by AI hype may be more focused on the alleged productivity and economic benefits of the tech than on the health of the creative and media industries.
• Rampant AI poses a potentially existential threat to news publishers, but without the quality content they produce the world’s information future looks “very bleak”, says Danielle Coffey, president and chief executive of the News Media Alliance.

Where next? 

• The limitations of generative AI have once again been exposed as social media mockery forced US publisher Gannett to pause its use of an artificial intelligence tool that was producing badly written reports of high school sports matches. 
• The threat of generative AI producing reams of low-quality content to populate made-for-advertising websites may be addressed by brand-safety firms using new AI tools designed to better help ad buyers determine which pieces of content are appropriate for their brands. 

Key quote

“AI just eats everything. It needs to be fed” – Mark Zagorski, CEO of DoubleVerify.

Sourced from CNN, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times