The News Media Alliance, a leading trade group representing nearly 2,000 news outlets in the U.S., has raised concerns about the use of copyrighted news content by artificial intelligence (AI) technology companies. In recent research published on Tuesday, the Alliance found that developers of generative AI systems, including prominent companies like OpenAI and Google, have been using news, magazine, and digital media content to train their chatbots.
According to the News Media Alliance, AI companies have programmed their bots to prioritize information from credible publishers over other sources on the web. Danielle Coffey, chief executive of the News Media Alliance, stated that their research indicates unauthorized copying of member content to train AI products, with a higher reliance on these sources than others. Coffey emphasized that this not only undermines the publishers but also impacts the sustainability of AI models and the availability of reliable information.
The Alliance’s published white paper challenges the notion that AI bots merely ‘learn’ facts through diverse data sets in a human-like manner. The group argues that this is a misconception, as AI models retain expressions of facts from copied training materials, which are protected by copyright, without absorbing the underlying concepts. In response to this issue, several major media companies have implemented defensive measures, including coding on their websites, to protect their content from AI bots that scrape the web for information. However, these measures address only future content scraping and do not rectify previous unauthorized use of reporting by AI bots.
To address these concerns, the News Media Alliance has put forward recommendations for news publishers. These include urging policymakers to recognize the unauthorized use of copyrighted material to train AI bots as infringement and advocating for publishers to license their content efficiently and on fair terms. The Alliance argues that a solution is needed to ensure the growth and flourishing of the news and media industry. This solution should allow publishers to profit from and participate in the development of the generative AI revolution, which is being built upon their work. The News Media Alliance’s statement highlights the ongoing challenges faced by publishers in the rapidly evolving AI landscape and underscores the need for a balanced approach that respects copyright laws while embracing technological advancements.
